Very Very Common Mike Dunford: 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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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