Ari Cohn: Remember when everyone was absolutely certain about the thing that totally happened and exemplified everything wrong with "AI culture" that ended up being...not what happened? www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Remember when everyone was absolutely certain about the thing that totally happened and exemplified everything wrong with "AI culture" that ended up being...not what happened? www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records showwww.washingtonpost.com A different actress was hired to voice OpenAI’s “Sky” months before CEO Sam Altman contacted Scarlett Johansson, according to documents and the actress’s agent.

I have been reading you for years, and I can’t believe you just posted “people accused of doing a Bad Thing willing shared internal documents they chose, those documents show no evidence of them doing the Bad Thing, so I guess it didn’t happen.”

If this story had been “Trump Org releases internal emails, none of them discuss stealing classified documents, so it looks like he didn’t steal internal documents” you would have laughed at it.

Sure, they tried to hire the actress, then they tried to hire her again two days before launch, then on the day of the launch the founder tweeted the title of her famous role associated with the product, but the company says there’s no email! You must acquit.

I don't know what kind of arrogance it takes to even imagine you could rip off Scarlett "run me my money, Disney" Johanson for more than half a second

She also literally just participated in a strike where the ability to control or stop studios from using actors likenesses in AI was a key factor. The odds of her either agreeing to license her voice *or* to not fight an attempt to imitate her were extremely low.

Yeah, the odds of a lawyer saying "wtf are you thinking, get her to sign off on all your emails instructing the voice actor you hired specifically because she sounded like ScarJo to sound more like her or she will own you" is really high.

BETTE MIDLER ARRIVES, STAGE RIGHT, EATING POPCORN. Bette Midler won this case in the 1980s...

Literally came here to say this...

But, John, we are very special smart boys! Smarter than everyone else! You have to let us do our very special smart boy things or the world* will end and also we will yell and cry and become fascists!** *our total and unjust economic supremacy **we are already fascists who talk too much

Ari, this isn’t a great take. It’s still incredibly likely that they wanted to have people think it was her. bsky.app/profile/lega...

In voiceover work there’s a concept called a “soundalike” which is an actor chosen to impersonate someone more famous. My guess was always that this was what they did.

Ill admit to being not all that perturbed about soundalikes in general. I can agree that false claims that someone *actually* is the voice when they aren't is problematic, but it seems to be from other responses that everyone knew from the beginning it was a soundalike!

You might not be that perturbed personally, but assuming you've followed at least some of the various artists' union negotiations and lobbying efforts, you must be aware that one of the most important issues to artists is whether they can protect exclusive control of their voice and performance.

Sure. And I agree that falsely claiming it is her l, or misleading people into thinking it is, are both bad. But past that...meh

So if they just do everything they can to make the ai voice sound like SJ, but never say anything about it sounding like her voice, or not, they're fine, legally speaking?

Maybe. Probably.

I dunno man, I'm just a layman here, but "Hey ScarJo, will you do this voice? If not, we'll just get someone who sounds exactly like you and let people think of you and your character when they hear it." seems problematic, no?

The point isn't if the people in the company knows, the point is what the public thinks when they market it and if they intentionally make it seem like it's her. Publicity rights don't work like copyright here

I did t say anything about what the company knows. Someone quoted the post saying "it's not news that it's a soundalike, nobody ever thought it was actually her, that's not the point." Well, if that's true....

Publicity rights cover likeness, if people who didn't know otherwise think that she did the voice then that's likely enough. It does not require convincing everybody she did the voice, it does not require direct copying. And apparently her own family thought the voice was hers.

I know what publicity rights are. And that's not really an accurate summary.

I mean, if that’s true: 1) Why did they feel the need to officially license her voice at all? 2) If they thought a sound a like was safe from civil suits, why pull it in response to her C&D?

It's OK everyone, Ari is not perturbed by this thing that is still very much grounds for a lawsuit

Altman tweeting out "her" like a muppet doesn't help their case either

I mean nobody is gonna claim there weren't unforced errors here

So Altman was trying to inflate the perceived worth of AI at the same time he was trying to do some creepy rights grab?

Remember the whole Drake thing? Or the artist who trined an ai on her voice to sing in styles she couldn't? It's totally possible to have taken a different actors voice and modeled the read on the performance in "Her."

Or trying to get her onboard two days before launch. Also, it’s not the timbre and tone of the voice, it’s the pattern and inflection of the performance. Hiring an actress to model the physical waveforms of the voice doesn’t preclude training it on Johansson’s performance.

I’m thinking this is something Grover might do? Or Rowlf the dog?

So you're saying we've invented the mechanical turk again?

So you just… took them at their word?

I'm gonna have to join the "bad take" crowd on this one, Ari. It's a selective release that fails to explain Altman's apparent references to the film and role. It's *plausible* that Open AI isn't lying (this time) and it is all a big coinkidink, but I'd want depos before I'd buy their explanation.

The real bad take is rights of publicity. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Should =/= is.

I prefer to practice the art of the possible, Mike.

That works better in the 7th than the 9th.

I find your lack of faith disturbing

That’s a different claim that what you originally said though. A potentially defensible one, but a different one altogether.

Also Ford Motor Company didn't hire the actual Bette Midler to do that commercial. They hired someone who could sound a lot like her. That was still appropriating Midler's likeness. Of course it was a different voice actress; it had to be. Johansson declined the job. A lot like the Midler case.

There are some really important factual distinctions between this and Midler. bsky.app/profile/aric... et seq.

I don't think the reasoning of Midler can so cleanly be transposed to creating a voice for a specific character. It's obvious that Midler's singing voice, ubiquitous in her work, is her own identity. Less obvious that a character voicing relates to SJ's identity.

There are. That's one of the reasons I think White v Samsung is more important here. Differences there, too, of course - White was only ever famous for that one role. That said "we asked, they said no, we did it anyway" is in play - and is the bad fact that led to the outcome in the other 2 cases.

I know you've read Midler (and probably Waits too) and of course no two cases are 100% alike. Not looking for a food fight with you, but the "offer work to one very famous person, get turned down, then intentionally seek out and hire a sound-alike" seems like it's pretty close to this fact pattern.

Sure, but the nature of the appropriated voice and its relation to SJ's identity (the ultimate issue) is arguably pretty different.

An actor can have a substantial identity interest in their roles. Does ScarJo has that for her role in "Her"? I'd agree she's much better known for playing Marvelverse's Black Widow. It's a question of degree, and I think reasonable people might differ about how much of an impact "Her" has here.

Considering the amount of bullshit said by OpenAI execs and spokespersons over the last couple of years, I can't blame anyone for being skeptical here.

I don’t know, this part right here seems to be a pretty important part of the story you’re glossing over.

Of course, we can't say whether it happened what the public knows, I'm a little hesistant about putting too much stock in damage-control by anonymous OpenAI sources and industry talent agents It still doesn't explain why Altman contacted ScarJo in Sept 2023 & May 2024 asking her about Sky

FWIW, WaPo reporter on Sept. 25, 2023 wrote the Sky voice "sounds somewhat similar to Scarlett Johansson", and under Cal. right-of-publicity law she wouldn't necessarily need to prove misappropriation, just an imitation intended to profit off her likeness www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

ChatGPT can talk now, threatening Alexa and Siriwww.washingtonpost.com OpenAI’s ChatGPT is now able to speak back to users, putting it on a collision course with Google, Apple and Amazon in the battle to create smarter voice assistants.

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