No, you don’t understand, these guys are tech bros, they’re special, for reasons.

According to her statement, they were still trying to strike a deal with her within days of the release.

I can't imagine anything more shady than trying to strike a deal with someone for their likeness, all the while preparing to use it anyway and later denying it had anything to do with them

They "let the cat out of the bag" by referencing the movie "Her" if I understand correctly. Not really an admition of guilt like the article makes it seem.

They also clearly state on their website that they used an other voice actor. If you actually compare both voices, they aren't the same just similar. They probably went with someone that sounds like her on purpose specifically because of the movie but that's fine really.

This article is emotional and manipulative. I don't think scar jo deserves to own the whole spectrum her voice belongs to just because she voiced an AI in one movie. This is how you end up with corporations owning all voices like they tried with music.

That‘s the type of cockiness you‘d expect from scoundrels who just committed the biggest heist in history and got away with it. I‘m not surprised in the slightest.

These are the same dudes who have LSD and mushroom parties with their female coworkers and then pressure them into sex.

No, it's only theft when it's poor people doing it.

When it's rich people, it's fair use of a publicly available resource.

That’s pretty much the whole point.

Making use of other people’s work and likeness in a way that removes any obligations you would normally have to those people.

Just clearly define “copyright violation” for them, and they’ll craft a method that technically eludes your definition.

This reads like a lemmy version of a shittymorph post

Loved you in My Name is Earl

Holy shit we have a character on Lemmy now I'm deleting my Reddit account

There is almost certainly internal communication that basically reads "hey let's get an actress who sounds as close to ScarJo as possible". There's also the CEO tweeting "her" on the day of release.

Is that legal? IANAL, but OpenAI's reaction of immediately shutting that shit down leads me to believe they realized it is, in fact, illegal.

Your comparison is also incorrect. You're not getting a JEJ soundalike, you're getting a JEJ soundalike to do a Darth Vader impersonation. Meaningfully different semantics. They don't just want "white american woman who vaguely sounds like ScarJo I guess" they have proven beyond doubt that they want "The AI from the 2013 movie Her starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson".

Also legality aside, it's really fucking weird and ethically wrong. I don't care if it's legal or not, you shouldn't be able to make an AI replicate someone's voice without their consent.

There is evidence they wanted to use Johansson’s voice, because they asked to use her voice. Both OpenAI and Johansson have acknowledged this.

As far as I know, OpenAI has said they hired a voice actor before approaching Johansson, but refuses to offer additional information to corroborate.

After failing to secure Johansson to lend her voice to Sky - which is portrayed as having not just a very similar voice, but a very similar personality to Sam - the OpenAI team made several references to the Her movie prior to the announcement.

Similar voices happen. But when all of those other pieces align, it’s fairly clear that they’re copying the character. Focusing on only the voice being similar is reductive. They are committing IP theft and they’re attempting to confer approval/endorsement/a relationship of/to the Sky personality from the people involved in the Her movie.

There isn’t any evidence that they used her voice

There's ample evidence, via the samples OpenAI released during their demo.

Actually, there is evidence that they paid a voice actress to model that specific actress’s voice.

Actually, there's not. OpenAI refuses to release where they got their voice samples. They insist it came from "another unnamed actress".

She’s not the only person with those vocal qualities.

If the raw data OpenAI used to train its AI came from voice samples produced by Scarlett Johansson, then there actually IS only one person with those vocal qualities.

If I wanted James Earl Jones to read my eulogy, but he isn’t available or is unwilling. Why couldn’t I get someone to sound like him to read it?

Nothing is stopping you from doing this.

However, if you took an existing privately licensed James Earl Jones eulogy and doctored it with AI trained data to replace another person's name with your name, then you'd be robbing Jones of his work product.

Waving your hands and saying "But maybe I didn't do the thing I did, so actually its fine" isn't a credible defense.

Yup. People up in arms over this should be reminded that if you want to support SJ here that, in a worst case, you are directly supporting the privatization of vocalization. Like to goof around by talking in Morgan Freeman's voice? Be prepared to get slapped with a notice to stop. That voice is off limits, and oh also your natural voice sounds like this person.

Is this silly? Absolutely. But dammit we see what's happened to Youtube so be aware of the risk.

I asked ChatGPT for a response to your comment

Your comment raises several interesting points regarding the use of voice likeness and the legal implications of hiring voice actors who sound similar to well-known celebrities. Let’s break down the key issues:

1. Use of a Similar Voice: The core of the debate revolves around whether using a voice that sounds like a well-known celebrity constitutes a legal issue. If the voice used is indeed not Scarlett Johansson’s but merely resembles it, this might not be inherently illegal. However, it could still lead to legal disputes over rights of publicity and potential misrepresentation.

2. Voice Acting and Vocal Qualities: It is true that many voice actors can mimic the vocal qualities of celebrities. Hiring a voice actor who naturally has a similar voice to a celebrity is a common practice. The legal line is crossed if the intent and execution imply endorsement or use of the celebrity's identity without permission.

3. Rights of Publicity: Celebrities, including Scarlett Johansson, have rights of publicity, which protect against unauthorized commercial use of their name, likeness, and other identifiable aspects of their persona. If the resemblance is close enough that it creates confusion or implies endorsement, it could be grounds for a lawsuit.

4. Potential for a Lawsuit: Whether Scarlett Johansson would win a lawsuit depends on several factors, including the jurisdiction's specific laws on rights of publicity, the exact nature of the voice usage, and whether it can be proven that the voice model intentionally mimics her voice in a way that exploits her identity.

5. Practical Examples: Your analogy with James Earl Jones highlights a key point. If a voice actor is hired for their natural resemblance to a well-known voice, it's typically acceptable. However, explicitly marketing or promoting the voice in a way that suggests it is the celebrity without their consent could lead to legal challenges.

In summary, while it may not be outright illegal to use a voice that sounds like a celebrity, there are significant legal nuances and potential for litigation if the use implies unauthorized endorsement or exploits the celebrity's identity. The balance lies in how the voice is marketed and whether it misleads the audience into believing it is the celebrity.

They are not similar other than they are both female.

I thought Ferengi were supposed to have good hearing.

No no you don't understand. Since Scar Jo played a female voice that behaved nicely and made jokes in a movie she now owns the rights to any female (or feminine male voice) that either: makes a joke, says something witty, answers a question, or makes a statement. This is a slam dunk case for Scar Jo. I will also be sued for writing this as she also wrote an email in a movie once that had words in the forms of sentences just like this post so I'm screwed.

Finally, a sane response. Of course they'll "sound similar" because they're both female voices attempting to come off as friendly with an American accent.

I'm more on the side of opposing AI implementations but people are really reaching with this one. I'm assuming it was pulled just so they can get their legal defense in order.

This will be another case like any other, where they take it to court, and there is no real basis for anything

Because then they'll give up whoever it was that they used to voice the AI and it'll be mostly over. The thing is though that if they rush into a lawsuit too eagerly, nobody's going to want to work with them under a similar contract.

Fuck me sometimes I felt like I was the only person on the planet to play that game

If only she was ever in a situation where her voice was professionally recorded.

Wtf is this thinking.

Open Ai wouldn't use something or someone without consent? There's a plethora of lawsuits and evidence that they did that with pretty much every medium out there.

Fine tuning a general TTS model on a specific custom voice doesn't require as much data as you think it does.

The hard part is building the foundational model that can be easily fine tuned. And OpenAI has already done that.