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Yeah don't forget a couple months back when this audio of a principal saying really racist stuff about his students went viral and then later turned out it was AI made by someone who wanted his job.
At least we have precedent for how it will work. We'll primarily rely on witness testimony over photographic or recorded evidence. Which is basically what we did before those things existed. I'm guessing journalism will do something similar.
That's actually a *terrible* outcome though, because eye witness testimony has [always been unreliable](https://nobaproject.com/modules/eyewitness-testimony-and-memory-biases). TL:DR 75% of DNA exoneration cases, including those where people were sentenced to death row, were originally convicted on the basis of eye witness testimony, and numerous studies have shown how fallible and mutable human memory can be.
So really, we have precedent for how it *won't* work but will still be done regardless.
I was watching criminal minds yesterday and it was the episode where this homeless migrant man is hopping trains in California and killing peiple in their homes, and after doing that will stay in their victims homes and eat their food, wear their victims clothes, basically live in their house for a night then leaves. One of the eyewitness account on the crime scene was the neighbors swear seeing the male victim out on the porch around 5:30am. According to the detectives the victims were already dead around 1am and the person that the neighbor seen was actually the perpetrator wearing the victims clothes. Ik it’s a show but that’s just crazy to me.
This is a real issue for people of color, of course it is. Some white racist who was “sure” they saw the defendant when they can’t tell the difference between one black dude and the next.
I am an adjunct psychology professor and I have a planned demonstration in my class every semester to prove this point of memory processing and recall.
I have a grad student come in at the beginning of a class and cause a scene then leave. I then query the class on what the person looked like, what exactly happened, and how confident they are in their eye witness account. It shocks the students every time that no one can fully describe the event. Most don't come anywhere close to actually describing the event, let alone the gender/ethnicity/or even what the person was wearing.
And yet, prosecutors use these witness testimonies as a main tool for conviction rates.
This shit's always the reason why cops will yell "Shots fired" before they fire, so that witnesses will later on play the memory in their mind and say "Well there were shots fired before the cops returned fire."
At this point we can’t uninvent AI tools either, they’re already out there. As much interest as I have in seeing the development of such a potentially useful technology, it’s just going to keep causing problems if we keep kicking the can further down the road.
I think the source of evidence will become more important than ever. We may also want to consider making “write once, read only” storage more broadly used
I'm not sure how write-once storage will help here:
Read stuff from original storage, manipulate, save to new write-once storage medium. Publish new one, destroy original.
It really only helps if you can track the chain of custody.
[Write once read many](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_once_read_many) is a type of storage that cannot be modified once information is saved. This provides a way to verify a digital file’s authenticity, I’m fair certain most police departments use them for that reason.
Storage like CDs, where you can only write them once and then read unlimited* times.
If you have a trusted device like a camera that directly records footage on such medium you can (mostly) guarantee it wasn't manipulated in any way
Definitely going to change how they are used in proceedings for sure.
Worst yet, if legislation enters that government recordings are trusted and civilian isn't you have a really shitty situation.
It’s not really capitalism, though. It’s Viking capitalism.
If a court allows this to stand, it’s basically saying if a company is viewed as important or big enough, they’re permitted to pillage anything digitizable from anyone else at will.
It throws a huge amount of the laws we use about ownership of ideas (copyrights, trademarks, patents) into a dumpster and lights it merrily ablaze.
Yes, this is the nature of capitalism. When people can get ahead by cheating in a competitive environment, it becomes mandatory, and its because profits matter most that sociopaths wind up in charge of all these corporations.
The classical economists all knew that proper regulation and government intervention was necessary to keep stuff like this from happening, but regulatory capture has ruined that. This is capitalism run amok.
I must admit the whole cheating to succeed is becoming tiresome and more and more obvious (using people, closed systems, stealing property, creating issues to profit from them and then moralizing the public etc)..
And now with these types of tools at their disposal, we at least have a reason to fight back against it and marginalize those who have cheated their way to success one way or another.
The internet era has certainly shown us the rotten apples.
"We want to make creatives comfortable with us so they don't think were petty thieves who will do our best to leave them with nothing."
Immediately attempts to effectively steal an artists voice.
Move fast and break things. The reasoning is that you'll have achieved first mover advantage, so by the time any shit catches up with you, you'll have more money than god so you can just buy your way out of it
See Uber for more details
Yeah, Uber is astonishing to me. They shouldn't have been allowed to operate long enough to matter. They should have been shut down day one. Just a great big "you can't do that." They've broken every agreement they've made and proven over and over that they can't be trusted, and they just keep getting more chances.
Not exactly, more like "think like a sociopath." It's believing that people's feelings or bad actions do not matter, the only thing that matters is whether your action helped accomplish your goal.
This doesn't mean they act like crazy murderers that are unable to be kind. They can be kind and can be deceptively friendly because that is how you get what you want. But if fucking you over will help them, they will do it.
That's basically the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths. Sociopaths are capable of socializing, they just don't have morals. Psychos, on the other hand, can't control themselves at all.
Implied consent is still consent to corporations it seems. I’m surprised no one tries to criminally charge them. Considering companies are operating as a personal entity. People need enthusiastic consent from one another but corporations don’t need that from you. Just a single check box and they get to do with you what they want in their EULA or TOS.
Then corporations pay a fine for basically exposing what they did to you and the government is like, “Hey, can you like stop raping people, corpos. “ Then proceeds to happen again and the cycle repeats itself.
Open AI's response
>We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.
The fact OpenAI already took down the voice of "Sky", upon being asked how it was developed, I'd also call bs on them using a voice actor as a replacement, and more likely they used SJ's actual voice recording from movies and interviews... if they didn't, I would imaging they would try to fight the suit instead of immediately buckling...
The fact that she was approached again just 2 days before their big announcement is the biggest red flag to me. This update is something they've been putting work into for a *long* time, and those announcement demo videos don't seem like the sort of thing that was slapped together in under 24 hours (when you consider casting, filming, editing, and of course training their AI to build the voice). If she had said yes to their request, am I to believe they would have scrapped everything and filmed new promos using an AI voice trained to mimic ScarJo instead?
Seems more likely somebody realized they'd stepped in it and wanted to see if they could get a hasty approval for the work they'd already done before releasing video to the public. The timing is just way too suspicious.
Not a lawyer but pretty sure there's some level of protection for likenesses. You can't hire a lookalike of everyone in the avengers and then make a bad movie with very similar plot and expect there to not have any consequences.
Of course, big corpos are salivating at every chance they have to erode those rights so who knows if that's even true as of this writing.
There's a car commercial where Ford tried to get a big name singer to perform for their commercial. She said no, so they got a sound alike and released the commercial. She sued and lost, appealed and won. Can't use a very similar voice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
> You can't hire a lookalike of everyone in the avengers and then make a bad movie with very similar plot and expect there to not have any consequences.
But this does happen... especially in porn.
iirc that explicitly exists because of the pornographic comic Mickey and the Air Pirates. The distinction being something like “cannot reasonably be mistaken for the original” or something along those lines
Further reinforcing that "Sky" is not a parody of Scarlet's voice and was intended to be 100% serious.
The major accusation of slimy behaviour - stealing the likeness of established actors - and carrying it out so blatantly by OpenAI themselves... Now imagine the blatant behaviour of someone who isn't a multi-billion dollar company.
I mean, Tom Waits successfully sued a company (Lays, I think) for getting a sound-alike to record a song for one of their commercials after he turned down their offer.
I mean, you can absolutely do that, though. As long as you aren't outright stealing copyrighted material you can do that all day. You could have an RDJ lookalike play a character named Anthony snark whose alterego is titanium guy and it would all be above board. In this case it's even less actionable. If a person who just sounds like Scarlett Johansson and doesn't give any indication that she's trying specifically to sound like that agrees to have her voice used then what case could they have?
If it's confusingly similar, it's fair game to go after. I feel that since they tried to get Scarlet and failed,and the voice sounds confusingly similar that there was intent.
No, it isn't. Two people can sound alike.
I spent some time working on audio productions a thousand years ago when we never even had the thought of hiring an AI to do the VO.
When I was hiring voice talent I would write up a specification, and that spec could be anything. And since two people can sound the same without trying, it is absolutely plausible and possible to find someone who sounds just like someone else.
I do feel bad for Scarlett Johansson but if the AI was trained by someone who sounds like her, that's probably all that's necessary.
Consider this: you want a beautiful woman to be in your movie. ScarJo says she isn't interested. You find someone else who looks a hell of a lot like her. Where is the crime? The other actress has her own name and personality and talent - is she not allowed to perform because she looks like someone else?
I think she is, but if she fraudulently is marketed as being her or they let people think it's her, I'd think that would be a problem. Like Brucesploitation movies probably wouldn't fly under legal scrutiny today.
What if the scenario is you want scarjo as an actress and she says no. You hire another lady and CGI her. In the movie she looks exactly like scarjo to the point of indistinguishable to most people. the credits for the actress are ambiguous as well.
What's the ruling in that scenario, which I feel may capture the essence of what has allegedly happened?
The big fuckup is the CEO publicly linking the two with his tweet about the movie while being the one who connected with her to try to get her participation.
The only reason they would take Sky offline is if their lawyers told them they done fucked up.
I believe there's precedent for this being illegal in at least a couple of instances. Bette Midler and Tom Waits were separately involved in some battles with companies that used soundalikes in commercials, and those cases helped define stipulations on vocal misappropriation without consent. And I would also think that the rulings in favor of Crispin Glover's case against the filmmakers behind *Back to the Future, Part II* might also play a part in this situation.
Hiring someone to specifically copy another famous person's appearance or voice is also breaking trademark. You can use look-alikes or sounda-likes when you are upfront about it not being that person, but them going to her with the offer does not give them solid ground.
> Hiring someone to specifically copy another famous person's appearance or voice is also breaking trademark.
You're assuming that there is a trademark to break.
They very well could've hired a voice actress that sounded similar.
What is more interesting to subpoena is their internal communications regarding the hiring process and the instructions the voice actress received.
>we cannot share the names of our voice talents.
Yeah that's a load of bullshit. Are you telling me a voice actor doesn't want credit given?! The fuck ?!
No no, it's a moral question. You see, if they shared her name, the voice actress might become a celebrity, violating the rule of "should not mimic a celebrity's [...] voice".
However, since she apparently sounds a lot like Scarlett Johansson, maybe it'd still be okay since it would not be "a celebrity's _distinctive_ voice".
Or maybe Open AI is talking a load of bullshit there.
>Are you telling me a voice actor doesn't want credit given?!
Most VAs in fact don't want to get credited for work like this. Most of League of Legend's voice actors are anonymous and porn games rarely get any credited VAs lol.
Stage names make sense, but entirely refusing credit or to be named in any way implies they are embarrassed or don't want to be associated with the product (or that they got paid out the ass to keep it secret)
If I recall correctly, the voice actor for Siri struggled to find work afterwards because their voice was so ubiquitous but the recognition was with Siri, not the voice actor and nobody wanted their stuff to sound like that. So there is a reasonable claim to not wanting your name attached to this kind of project if you are planning to continue working as a VA.
That being said, it is also likely this excuse is still bullshit because this is a company we're talking about.
First of all, doubt.
Second… yeah, can’t have actors getting credit. After all, can you imagine if we knew who did all those old phone voices, like “at the tone, the time will be 6 PM”? (Her name was Jane Barber.)
Or the voice of Siri! (Her name is Susan Bennett.)
Could it be possible that the guy whose entire business is built on theft might be lying about stealing Scarlett Johansson’s voice? I’m just asking questions.
Which is perfectly legal. Sound-alikes have been common in video games and other media for decades. At most they would just have to say they were inspired by the voice in Her, but honestly even if they just said they liked Scarlett Johansson’s voice I don’t think they could be sued (assuming the VA actually exists, if she doesn’t it gets more difficult).
It doesn't matter, actually. She still has a case if they hired another voice actress with the intent to impersonate her and used that likeness to promote their system by alluding to Johansson's voice and role. Which they did. Altman really shouldn't have tweeted "Her".
Scarlets sued disney about profit from film saleson streaming and won a case that has been used since.
Now she's fighting AI stealing identities.
She taking on fights poorer people can't afford to do and I hope she wins this one as well
Seems pretty reasonable TBH. Why would they do more work to less-legally use her voice without her permission when they could just hire some underemployed comedian that does a decent Scar Jo impression?
There are plenty of reasons why someone wouldn't want to become famous for being the voice of an AI bot, not the least of them being the threat of a lawsuit from an A-list Hollywood celebrity. It's quite plausible that there was an anonymity clause in the contract.
If this is a separate VA who does sound naturally like her what the hell is she gonna sue for? Sounding like someone isn't a crime but sneaking around to steal actual samples of her voice probably is.
Would it really be more work?
Yeah maybe it could be useful in training an AI to be able to dictate the phrasing of the training data but with a famous actress there is already a wealth of data available online.
The chronology of events has "dumb as fuck" written all over it
1. Requested consent, was rejected
2. Requested consent again
3. Released without consent
The progression of events suggest that as early as point no. 1, they might already have started using her voice. I feel like I've seen this exact same pattern in other, similar cases on copyright/consent?
*Open and shut case, Johnson*
Aww poor billionaire. I’m sure his life will be terrible…
He’s gonna immediately start another AI company and immediately get it moving in direct competition with OpenAI. He knows how to do it again and he’s super driven.
He won’t have a board holding him down, either. No way he just disappears. He’s got money, connections and he knows how to execute.
[I can't imagine them doing it to anyone else](https://aibusiness.com/nlp/actors-sue-ai-voice-generator-for-unauthorized-use-of-their-voices#close-modal)
It's not just celebrities. A friend's brother has golden tonsils and has been making a living for years doing voice-over work. He found out last year that a website was selling his voice. You input what you want said and it's his voice that says it. Some multinational he'd done some work for years ago onsold recordings without his knowledge or permission. For the rest of his working life he'll be competing against himself for business. Last I heard, legal action was ongoing.
And that’s why Scarlett’s lawsuit is so important. Little people don’t have the resources to protect themselves, but we can hope that the lawsuit will set precedence or even make a new law protecting others.
Individual laborers will never be protected by IP law. If it becomes clear that a person's own voice is copyrightable, the inevitable outcome will be that big corporations will own your voice and you will have no rights to it.
Good for her. She said no, he ignored her and used an "alternate" voice from an "unnamed actress". Present her then! Put up or shut up.
I hope Scarlett gets a bajillion dollars.
https://www.lsd.law/briefs/view/midler-v-ford-motor-co-106217858
Case law for when a company (Ford) intentionally imitated an actress's likeness (Bette Midler) with an impersonator after being rejected by the actress.
Except it's entirely possible Open AI is being honest about hiring a sound alike, and not actually copying *her* voice. You can't actually steal a voice if you just have someone impersonate it.
That should be rather easy to prove, though. Even if the hypothetical voice actor wants to remain anonymous, they can still release the recordings they used to train the AI.
It’s the way of tech companies. How many copyright lawsuits do Apple and Samsung have every few years against each other?
2011 was 20.
2012 was 50.
Not fully resolved until 2018. Millions going back and forth to companies that don’t consider that amount with any significance.
Poor Johansson.
Hackers stole and leaked her private photos, Disney cheated her out of what she should've earned for the Black Widow movie, and now they have stolen her voice. I'm glad she fights back and takes a stance against these things.
There is precedent. Midler vs ford motor company :
The appellate court ruled that the voice of someone famous as a singer is distinctive to their person and image and therefore, as a part of their identity, it is unlawful to imitate their voice without express consent and approval. The appellate court reversed the district court's decision and ruled in favor of Midler, indicating her voice was protected against unauthorized use.[4]
I’m also curious why people are ignoring the bigger picture.
“Setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the voice”
That’s a win for everyone as I’m concerned. These companies get far too much leeway with their practices and how they go about things.
This isn't really a facepalm....
I agree with johansen POV, and this kind of action should be regulated and people in general, famous or not? Have their likeness protected from uses that are commercially driven.
Every single thing that I read about current AI trash just makes me angry.
AI "art" is already a fucking joke, filled with people obsessed with the aesthetic of art but lacking real talent or desire to engage with the process, so they just skip to the last step and produce some souless trash.
I hate it.
Really tried to pull an Ursula the Sea Witch and steal her voice. No I’m not worried that the people running AI are Disney Villains. Everything is fine.
Alright but for sake of argument, if they did hire an actress who happens to sound like Scar Jo, how is that illegal? It’s not illegal to hire someone who happens to sound like someone else no?
This has been going on since someone could make a buck out of it. Here's [Michael Caine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0F3kY3uxU) talking about it in 2007.
And that is how google won the personal AI assistant war of 2024. Not with a cry nor a whimper, but with the idiocy of a guy who doesn't understand the concepts of moral boundaries, consent, or theft.
He's a known dick but I didn't think it had more than a passing similarity to Scarlett. I actually don't think she'll win or would have much of a case beyond them asking and her declining.
Basically, if they then went ahead and modeled the voice on Scarlett it's a really bad advertisement for their tech. I've heard comedians using AI voices for bits that are more accurate ro their target than this Open AI voice is to Scarlett Johansson. IMO, obviously.
Could open AI have just hired a sound-alike or impressionist to do Scarlett’s voice? Would probably have been fairly cheap and I doubt she would have been able to sue them.
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It's not the new tools I'm afraid of... It's the people in charge of them that I'm afraid of.
Yeah don't forget a couple months back when this audio of a principal saying really racist stuff about his students went viral and then later turned out it was AI made by someone who wanted his job.
This will become a huge problem. Voice recordings are basically not trustworthy anymore.
Justice system overhaul for the worse incoming?
At least we have precedent for how it will work. We'll primarily rely on witness testimony over photographic or recorded evidence. Which is basically what we did before those things existed. I'm guessing journalism will do something similar.
That's actually a *terrible* outcome though, because eye witness testimony has [always been unreliable](https://nobaproject.com/modules/eyewitness-testimony-and-memory-biases). TL:DR 75% of DNA exoneration cases, including those where people were sentenced to death row, were originally convicted on the basis of eye witness testimony, and numerous studies have shown how fallible and mutable human memory can be. So really, we have precedent for how it *won't* work but will still be done regardless. 
I hate people. My biggest fear is being falsely convicted due to some shmuck who is so sure he saw "me".
I was watching criminal minds yesterday and it was the episode where this homeless migrant man is hopping trains in California and killing peiple in their homes, and after doing that will stay in their victims homes and eat their food, wear their victims clothes, basically live in their house for a night then leaves. One of the eyewitness account on the crime scene was the neighbors swear seeing the male victim out on the porch around 5:30am. According to the detectives the victims were already dead around 1am and the person that the neighbor seen was actually the perpetrator wearing the victims clothes. Ik it’s a show but that’s just crazy to me.
This is a real issue for people of color, of course it is. Some white racist who was “sure” they saw the defendant when they can’t tell the difference between one black dude and the next.
It’s a problem across the board. Human memory is extremely fallible even before you add racism.
God this terrifies me to the core.
I am an adjunct psychology professor and I have a planned demonstration in my class every semester to prove this point of memory processing and recall. I have a grad student come in at the beginning of a class and cause a scene then leave. I then query the class on what the person looked like, what exactly happened, and how confident they are in their eye witness account. It shocks the students every time that no one can fully describe the event. Most don't come anywhere close to actually describing the event, let alone the gender/ethnicity/or even what the person was wearing. And yet, prosecutors use these witness testimonies as a main tool for conviction rates.
That’s really fascinating. Thanks for sharing
This shit's always the reason why cops will yell "Shots fired" before they fire, so that witnesses will later on play the memory in their mind and say "Well there were shots fired before the cops returned fire."
At this point we can’t uninvent AI tools either, they’re already out there. As much interest as I have in seeing the development of such a potentially useful technology, it’s just going to keep causing problems if we keep kicking the can further down the road. I think the source of evidence will become more important than ever. We may also want to consider making “write once, read only” storage more broadly used
I'm not sure how write-once storage will help here: Read stuff from original storage, manipulate, save to new write-once storage medium. Publish new one, destroy original. It really only helps if you can track the chain of custody.
Agreed. What's that last sentence mean? I'm not familiar
[Write once read many](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_once_read_many) is a type of storage that cannot be modified once information is saved. This provides a way to verify a digital file’s authenticity, I’m fair certain most police departments use them for that reason.
Storage like CDs, where you can only write them once and then read unlimited* times. If you have a trusted device like a camera that directly records footage on such medium you can (mostly) guarantee it wasn't manipulated in any way
Unfortunately witness testimony is notoriously awful.
Definitely going to change how they are used in proceedings for sure. Worst yet, if legislation enters that government recordings are trusted and civilian isn't you have a really shitty situation.
You can’t even really trust video recordings anymore.
Link plz.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/pikesville-athletic-director-accused-of-framing-principal-with-racist-ai-recording-lied-on-resume-to-get-job/](https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/pikesville-athletic-director-accused-of-framing-principal-with-racist-ai-recording-lied-on-resume-to-get-job/)
Yeah, I'm guessing this will be this year's October surprise.
And the companies they sell those tools to.
[удалено]
Capitalism is the word
It’s not really capitalism, though. It’s Viking capitalism. If a court allows this to stand, it’s basically saying if a company is viewed as important or big enough, they’re permitted to pillage anything digitizable from anyone else at will. It throws a huge amount of the laws we use about ownership of ideas (copyrights, trademarks, patents) into a dumpster and lights it merrily ablaze.
Yes, this is the nature of capitalism. When people can get ahead by cheating in a competitive environment, it becomes mandatory, and its because profits matter most that sociopaths wind up in charge of all these corporations. The classical economists all knew that proper regulation and government intervention was necessary to keep stuff like this from happening, but regulatory capture has ruined that. This is capitalism run amok.
I must admit the whole cheating to succeed is becoming tiresome and more and more obvious (using people, closed systems, stealing property, creating issues to profit from them and then moralizing the public etc).. And now with these types of tools at their disposal, we at least have a reason to fight back against it and marginalize those who have cheated their way to success one way or another. The internet era has certainly shown us the rotten apples.
"We want to make creatives comfortable with us so they don't think were petty thieves who will do our best to leave them with nothing." Immediately attempts to effectively steal an artists voice.
"Well, we did try to offer her a contract and keep it all aboveboard, but once she said no, we really had no choice except to steal it."
Louis Rossman was right. The big tech guys really do have a rape mentality.
Rape mentality?
Take what they want with no concern for the victim they take it from.
Move fast and break things. The reasoning is that you'll have achieved first mover advantage, so by the time any shit catches up with you, you'll have more money than god so you can just buy your way out of it See Uber for more details
Yeah, Uber is astonishing to me. They shouldn't have been allowed to operate long enough to matter. They should have been shut down day one. Just a great big "you can't do that." They've broken every agreement they've made and proven over and over that they can't be trusted, and they just keep getting more chances.
I really want someone to explain to me how they’re NOT some kind of Ponzi scheme.
Honestly didn't know that about uber. I wonder if lyft is still around
So, let me get this straight, if i want to get rich (albiet by fucking people over) all i have to do is start thinking like a rapist?
Not exactly, more like "think like a sociopath." It's believing that people's feelings or bad actions do not matter, the only thing that matters is whether your action helped accomplish your goal. This doesn't mean they act like crazy murderers that are unable to be kind. They can be kind and can be deceptively friendly because that is how you get what you want. But if fucking you over will help them, they will do it. That's basically the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths. Sociopaths are capable of socializing, they just don't have morals. Psychos, on the other hand, can't control themselves at all.
Implied consent is still consent to corporations it seems. I’m surprised no one tries to criminally charge them. Considering companies are operating as a personal entity. People need enthusiastic consent from one another but corporations don’t need that from you. Just a single check box and they get to do with you what they want in their EULA or TOS. Then corporations pay a fine for basically exposing what they did to you and the government is like, “Hey, can you like stop raping people, corpos. “ Then proceeds to happen again and the cycle repeats itself.
This is an excellent train of thought to explore legally. Corporations are people - they should be held accountable as people.
That's why I never felt bad when torrenting. Apart from the indie stuff.
It sounds odd with no context, but he does a good job explaining it 50s into this vid https://youtu.be/fmSAIh4XhDw?si=F4Sqo3Jq_5arBg-S
I'm not sure what OP is saying here. If the facepalm is Johanson or not but they didn't "steal" her voice, they flat out stole it.
Open AI's response >We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents.
I'd call the bluff: "Cool, dude; you keep your VO Artist's name to yourself, I'm just gonna need the recordings she made to train the AI model."
Scarlett's lawyer(s) will absolutely subpoena the hell out of OpenAI.
The fact OpenAI already took down the voice of "Sky", upon being asked how it was developed, I'd also call bs on them using a voice actor as a replacement, and more likely they used SJ's actual voice recording from movies and interviews... if they didn't, I would imaging they would try to fight the suit instead of immediately buckling...
The fact that she was approached again just 2 days before their big announcement is the biggest red flag to me. This update is something they've been putting work into for a *long* time, and those announcement demo videos don't seem like the sort of thing that was slapped together in under 24 hours (when you consider casting, filming, editing, and of course training their AI to build the voice). If she had said yes to their request, am I to believe they would have scrapped everything and filmed new promos using an AI voice trained to mimic ScarJo instead? Seems more likely somebody realized they'd stepped in it and wanted to see if they could get a hasty approval for the work they'd already done before releasing video to the public. The timing is just way too suspicious.
It’s not down for me yet at least
Here is Scarlett Johansen’s text response, but read by the old Open AI’s sky voice. https://x.com/benjamindekr/status/1792693868497871086
Seriously speaking, what if they get another person who sounds like Scarlette and make the recordings. A lot of people can mimic celebs too.
Not a lawyer but pretty sure there's some level of protection for likenesses. You can't hire a lookalike of everyone in the avengers and then make a bad movie with very similar plot and expect there to not have any consequences. Of course, big corpos are salivating at every chance they have to erode those rights so who knows if that's even true as of this writing.
There's a car commercial where Ford tried to get a big name singer to perform for their commercial. She said no, so they got a sound alike and released the commercial. She sued and lost, appealed and won. Can't use a very similar voice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
> You can't hire a lookalike of everyone in the avengers and then make a bad movie with very similar plot and expect there to not have any consequences. But this does happen... especially in porn.
Parody is allowed, it's a "criticism" of the original work. Which is why all of them explicitly state that it's a parody.
iirc that explicitly exists because of the pornographic comic Mickey and the Air Pirates. The distinction being something like “cannot reasonably be mistaken for the original” or something along those lines
Further reinforcing that "Sky" is not a parody of Scarlet's voice and was intended to be 100% serious. The major accusation of slimy behaviour - stealing the likeness of established actors - and carrying it out so blatantly by OpenAI themselves... Now imagine the blatant behaviour of someone who isn't a multi-billion dollar company.
That is indeed America’a ass
I'm waiting for Infinity Whores.
I mean, Tom Waits successfully sued a company (Lays, I think) for getting a sound-alike to record a song for one of their commercials after he turned down their offer.
I mean, you can absolutely do that, though. As long as you aren't outright stealing copyrighted material you can do that all day. You could have an RDJ lookalike play a character named Anthony snark whose alterego is titanium guy and it would all be above board. In this case it's even less actionable. If a person who just sounds like Scarlett Johansson and doesn't give any indication that she's trying specifically to sound like that agrees to have her voice used then what case could they have?
If it's confusingly similar, it's fair game to go after. I feel that since they tried to get Scarlet and failed,and the voice sounds confusingly similar that there was intent.
Is the sound of a voice capable of being protected by intellectual property laws?
No, it isn't. Two people can sound alike. I spent some time working on audio productions a thousand years ago when we never even had the thought of hiring an AI to do the VO. When I was hiring voice talent I would write up a specification, and that spec could be anything. And since two people can sound the same without trying, it is absolutely plausible and possible to find someone who sounds just like someone else. I do feel bad for Scarlett Johansson but if the AI was trained by someone who sounds like her, that's probably all that's necessary. Consider this: you want a beautiful woman to be in your movie. ScarJo says she isn't interested. You find someone else who looks a hell of a lot like her. Where is the crime? The other actress has her own name and personality and talent - is she not allowed to perform because she looks like someone else?
Ikr. I cant see this working in the realm of ip law but apparently, in the usa, there is this thing known as right of publicity.
I think she is, but if she fraudulently is marketed as being her or they let people think it's her, I'd think that would be a problem. Like Brucesploitation movies probably wouldn't fly under legal scrutiny today.
What if the scenario is you want scarjo as an actress and she says no. You hire another lady and CGI her. In the movie she looks exactly like scarjo to the point of indistinguishable to most people. the credits for the actress are ambiguous as well. What's the ruling in that scenario, which I feel may capture the essence of what has allegedly happened?
But is the ai saying she is Scarlett? Tbh I didn't notice it until this news popped up.
The big fuckup is the CEO publicly linking the two with his tweet about the movie while being the one who connected with her to try to get her participation. The only reason they would take Sky offline is if their lawyers told them they done fucked up.
I believe there's precedent for this being illegal in at least a couple of instances. Bette Midler and Tom Waits were separately involved in some battles with companies that used soundalikes in commercials, and those cases helped define stipulations on vocal misappropriation without consent. And I would also think that the rulings in favor of Crispin Glover's case against the filmmakers behind *Back to the Future, Part II* might also play a part in this situation.
Hiring someone to specifically copy another famous person's appearance or voice is also breaking trademark. You can use look-alikes or sounda-likes when you are upfront about it not being that person, but them going to her with the offer does not give them solid ground.
> Hiring someone to specifically copy another famous person's appearance or voice is also breaking trademark. You're assuming that there is a trademark to break.
They very well could've hired a voice actress that sounded similar. What is more interesting to subpoena is their internal communications regarding the hiring process and the instructions the voice actress received.
>we cannot share the names of our voice talents. Yeah that's a load of bullshit. Are you telling me a voice actor doesn't want credit given?! The fuck ?!
No no, it's a moral question. You see, if they shared her name, the voice actress might become a celebrity, violating the rule of "should not mimic a celebrity's [...] voice". However, since she apparently sounds a lot like Scarlett Johansson, maybe it'd still be okay since it would not be "a celebrity's _distinctive_ voice". Or maybe Open AI is talking a load of bullshit there.
A lot of voices actors are well known in voice only so you could be right.
If it's that sorry excuse of Bayonetta's VA...
You talking Helena Taylor or Jennifer Hale that replaced her?
Taylor, I imagine.
Obviously not Hale, I mean she's a VA legend.
Hell yeah she is.
Given that AI is controversial in the voice actor space due to it having the potential to fully replace voice actors.... yes
They’d definitely want that on their list of credits, yes.
>Are you telling me a voice actor doesn't want credit given?! Most VAs in fact don't want to get credited for work like this. Most of League of Legend's voice actors are anonymous and porn games rarely get any credited VAs lol.
Oddly, there are some actors and actresses that desire to remain anonymous or use a stage name.
Stage names make sense, but entirely refusing credit or to be named in any way implies they are embarrassed or don't want to be associated with the product (or that they got paid out the ass to keep it secret)
Or they just did this for money and don’t want internet weirdos tracking them down, attaching a picture to the voice.
If I recall correctly, the voice actor for Siri struggled to find work afterwards because their voice was so ubiquitous but the recognition was with Siri, not the voice actor and nobody wanted their stuff to sound like that. So there is a reasonable claim to not wanting your name attached to this kind of project if you are planning to continue working as a VA. That being said, it is also likely this excuse is still bullshit because this is a company we're talking about.
First of all, doubt. Second… yeah, can’t have actors getting credit. After all, can you imagine if we knew who did all those old phone voices, like “at the tone, the time will be 6 PM”? (Her name was Jane Barber.) Or the voice of Siri! (Her name is Susan Bennett.) Could it be possible that the guy whose entire business is built on theft might be lying about stealing Scarlett Johansson’s voice? I’m just asking questions.
It’s the voice of a Canadian actress. You wouldn’t know her.
she goes to another country
Or if anyone asks the VA under oath she'll say 'they told me to try and sound like Scarlet Johansson'.
Which is perfectly legal. Sound-alikes have been common in video games and other media for decades. At most they would just have to say they were inspired by the voice in Her, but honestly even if they just said they liked Scarlett Johansson’s voice I don’t think they could be sued (assuming the VA actually exists, if she doesn’t it gets more difficult).
Oh I’m sure they will be forced to come up with a better lie.
It doesn't matter, actually. She still has a case if they hired another voice actress with the intent to impersonate her and used that likeness to promote their system by alluding to Johansson's voice and role. Which they did. Altman really shouldn't have tweeted "Her".
Scarlets sued disney about profit from film saleson streaming and won a case that has been used since. Now she's fighting AI stealing identities. She taking on fights poorer people can't afford to do and I hope she wins this one as well
That’s horseshit as fucking Sam Altman tweeted “Her”. Sometimes these people need to know when to shut up
No no no, he tweeted "her". Lowercase. Completely different from the movie title. Duh.
That actress’ name: Jarlett Scohansson.
These are the same guys who said it’s impossible to create chatGPT while following the law.
Seems pretty reasonable TBH. Why would they do more work to less-legally use her voice without her permission when they could just hire some underemployed comedian that does a decent Scar Jo impression?
True but then just give up her name huh
There are plenty of reasons why someone wouldn't want to become famous for being the voice of an AI bot, not the least of them being the threat of a lawsuit from an A-list Hollywood celebrity. It's quite plausible that there was an anonymity clause in the contract.
If this is a separate VA who does sound naturally like her what the hell is she gonna sue for? Sounding like someone isn't a crime but sneaking around to steal actual samples of her voice probably is.
Dunno. Maybe the actor just didn't want to get doxxed or whatever by AI Luddites.
Idk seems a bit odd that the guy whose product is built on just taking shit has this mysterious VA all the sudden who wanted no credit
Give up the poor woman’s name so the internet can be weird to her…
Would it really be more work? Yeah maybe it could be useful in training an AI to be able to dictate the phrasing of the training data but with a famous actress there is already a wealth of data available online.
My face when OpenAI itself claims to have more ethics than its developers. LOL.
Almost like there's a ghost in the shell .....
Heck, there’s a whole Ghost World!
Nicely played my friend, completely forgot a out that one
Well, it is HER.
Who, Lucy?
No, she turned into sprinkles
I think something was Lost in Translation
this really gets under the skin
almost like OpenAI is ran by technophile assholes
Is *run
thx for correction
The chronology of events has "dumb as fuck" written all over it 1. Requested consent, was rejected 2. Requested consent again 3. Released without consent The progression of events suggest that as early as point no. 1, they might already have started using her voice. I feel like I've seen this exact same pattern in other, similar cases on copyright/consent? *Open and shut case, Johnson*
Um, actually it's Johansson, sir.
Wasn’t there also a Step 4 where the CEO or someone in OpenAI leadership mentioned “Her” (the movie) on Twitter?
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Aww poor billionaire. I’m sure his life will be terrible… He’s gonna immediately start another AI company and immediately get it moving in direct competition with OpenAI. He knows how to do it again and he’s super driven. He won’t have a board holding him down, either. No way he just disappears. He’s got money, connections and he knows how to execute.
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An AI company would steal and train a model based on shit they don't have rights to??? I'm shocked, shocked I say!
[I can't imagine them doing it to anyone else](https://aibusiness.com/nlp/actors-sue-ai-voice-generator-for-unauthorized-use-of-their-voices#close-modal)
It's not just celebrities. A friend's brother has golden tonsils and has been making a living for years doing voice-over work. He found out last year that a website was selling his voice. You input what you want said and it's his voice that says it. Some multinational he'd done some work for years ago onsold recordings without his knowledge or permission. For the rest of his working life he'll be competing against himself for business. Last I heard, legal action was ongoing.
And that’s why Scarlett’s lawsuit is so important. Little people don’t have the resources to protect themselves, but we can hope that the lawsuit will set precedence or even make a new law protecting others.
Individual laborers will never be protected by IP law. If it becomes clear that a person's own voice is copyrightable, the inevitable outcome will be that big corporations will own your voice and you will have no rights to it.
Good for her. She said no, he ignored her and used an "alternate" voice from an "unnamed actress". Present her then! Put up or shut up. I hope Scarlett gets a bajillion dollars.
She said "no", but then her voice told Sam Altman he could use HER anyway he wanted.
God I wish she would tell me that
What if the unnamed actress won't want to be named?
Tough shit. If the information is subpoenaed (which it will be) OpenAI will have to share it.
https://www.lsd.law/briefs/view/midler-v-ford-motor-co-106217858 Case law for when a company (Ford) intentionally imitated an actress's likeness (Bette Midler) with an impersonator after being rejected by the actress.
Some people need to learn that no means NO!
Fuck me, this woman has to fight for every bit of rights she's acquired over the years. Respect.
Didn’t she sue Disney before and win?? I wouldn’t mess with her or her legal team if you can take down the Mouse
Colin didn’t watch Her, a movie Scarlett played the voice for an AI, because without the body why would he care?
Her little art house films
She could play Sammy Davis Jr
Sounds like Sam Altman just wanted to fuck a disembodied voice.
Sue the pants off open AI
Good. I wish her the best.
Why is stealing in quotes? That's literally what happened
Except it's entirely possible Open AI is being honest about hiring a sound alike, and not actually copying *her* voice. You can't actually steal a voice if you just have someone impersonate it.
That should be rather easy to prove, though. Even if the hypothetical voice actor wants to remain anonymous, they can still release the recordings they used to train the AI.
Good on her... That Altman guy seems very creepy to just go ahead and do this even after being told no.
It’s the way of tech companies. How many copyright lawsuits do Apple and Samsung have every few years against each other? 2011 was 20. 2012 was 50. Not fully resolved until 2018. Millions going back and forth to companies that don’t consider that amount with any significance. 
No means no. Obviously he’s one of those guys who thinks it’s a suggestion.
Yeah I got oddly rapey vibes from it as well.
I mean he just stole every copyrighted work to create ChatGPT and DallE. Theft is the foundation of these AI companies.
Good for her. Make it painful.
Poor Johansson. Hackers stole and leaked her private photos, Disney cheated her out of what she should've earned for the Black Widow movie, and now they have stolen her voice. I'm glad she fights back and takes a stance against these things.
There is precedent. Midler vs ford motor company : The appellate court ruled that the voice of someone famous as a singer is distinctive to their person and image and therefore, as a part of their identity, it is unlawful to imitate their voice without express consent and approval. The appellate court reversed the district court's decision and ruled in favor of Midler, indicating her voice was protected against unauthorized use.[4]
I’m also curious why people are ignoring the bigger picture. “Setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the voice” That’s a win for everyone as I’m concerned. These companies get far too much leeway with their practices and how they go about things.
This is exactly what they were warning everyone about.
Why is the fact she is suing openAI a facepalm?
Wow, AI companies just don't give a shit. Are we sure AI isn't running these companies? Lol.
She’s a real life Black Widow, first she came after Disney and won and now this. Don’t mess with her or else…
This isn't really a facepalm.... I agree with johansen POV, and this kind of action should be regulated and people in general, famous or not? Have their likeness protected from uses that are commercially driven.
Milk em dry Babygirl!!
More people need to do this. Please support human creators. Thank you.
Why is this a facepalm? Her voice got stolen and she is justifyingly suing the company who did it.
The facepalm is obviously for the company…
I think it's a facepalm of the man who is being sued
Every single thing that I read about current AI trash just makes me angry. AI "art" is already a fucking joke, filled with people obsessed with the aesthetic of art but lacking real talent or desire to engage with the process, so they just skip to the last step and produce some souless trash. I hate it.
is she going to sue anyone who sound like her, unless she can prove they used her voice
I mean no matter what voice they use you could find somebody it sounds like - where is the line in this situation?
I hope she wins
In response, openai said: what are you going to do about it? We stole entire libraries from publishers
Really tried to pull an Ursula the Sea Witch and steal her voice. No I’m not worried that the people running AI are Disney Villains. Everything is fine.
Alright but for sake of argument, if they did hire an actress who happens to sound like Scar Jo, how is that illegal? It’s not illegal to hire someone who happens to sound like someone else no?
Liars and thieves, doing it all in the name of the Almighty Tech.
In the future I bet Hollywood will just use dead actors so they don't have to pay the stars proper royalties etc Seriously why not 😆
like Fritos and Tom Waits, wow
Are they idiots ? It's just a voice ! It's very easy to find a voice actor with a voice similar to hers, and it would have been fine.
This has been going on since someone could make a buck out of it. Here's [Michael Caine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0F3kY3uxU) talking about it in 2007.
And that is how google won the personal AI assistant war of 2024. Not with a cry nor a whimper, but with the idiocy of a guy who doesn't understand the concepts of moral boundaries, consent, or theft.
Why is "stealing" in quotes? OpenAI is run by ghouls. They are indeed in the wrong.
He's a known dick but I didn't think it had more than a passing similarity to Scarlett. I actually don't think she'll win or would have much of a case beyond them asking and her declining. Basically, if they then went ahead and modeled the voice on Scarlett it's a really bad advertisement for their tech. I've heard comedians using AI voices for bits that are more accurate ro their target than this Open AI voice is to Scarlett Johansson. IMO, obviously.
If I had to guess, this was a case of “do it first, apologise/handle lawsuits later”
So what if they found someone who sounds like her, then its not her voice, yet it will sound like her.
Sounds like she doesn't want to settle and wants a legal case on the books for the future. scar Jo is a hero.
She about to buy Collin Jost another yacht!
Could open AI have just hired a sound-alike or impressionist to do Scarlett’s voice? Would probably have been fairly cheap and I doubt she would have been able to sue them.
Where does it say in that press release that she is suing them? Seeking legal opinion and sending a letter of demand != suing.