ChatGPT developer OpenAI said on Monday that it is aiming to develop a voice that sounds like Scarlett Johansson, days after launching its new AI voice assistant as part of a big upgrade to its main chatbot to compete with Siri and Alexa
OpeningAI announced in an early Monday morning post on X, formerly Twitter, that it is “working to pause the use” of one of the voices in an audible version of ChatGPT.
“We’ve received inquiries regarding the voice selection process for ChatGPT, specifically Sky,” OpenAI stated, adding that the voice will be temporarily suspended until it can respond to the concerns.
The Sky is a voice among the five. OpenAI debuted within its most recent AI model, GPT-4o, the foundation for the organization’s flagship product, ChatGPT. It enables users to communicate with the assistant and receive reciprocal responses through voice.
The remarkable resemblance between Sky and Johansson, specifically in her performance as an AI voice assistant in the film Her, garnered extensive media coverage.
Although OpenAI has recognized the vocal resemblances between Sky and Johansson, it has emphasized that the voice “is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson.” Still, it originates from “a different professional actress using her natural speaking voice.”
According to OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, the Verge Sky is also intended to sound different from Johansson, and the voices have been prepared for some time.
Sam Altman, CEO and cofounder of OpenAI, obscurely posted the word “her” on X after the disclosure of the update and voices. The tweet was broadly interpreted as a reference to the film in which Johansson provides the voice of a virtual assistant. Altman has stated that Her is among his all-time favorite movies.
Although OpenAI is adamant that Johansson is not the source material for Sky, the organization has stated that it cannot disclose the identity of the vocal talent responsible for developing the product. “We cannot disclose the identities of our voice actors to safeguard their privacy,”
OpenAI stated in a blog. The organization emphasized that “AI voices should not intentionally imitate the distinctive voice of a celebrity.”
The GPT-4o upgrade represents the most recent incarnation of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot’s driving force, the potent GPT4 model. Accessible to all users, the company claims the upgrade improves functionality across text, audio, and vision and increases speed.
By incorporating a voice assistant function, the organization solidifies its position as a formidable contender against tech behemoths, augmenting the menace it has already presented in domains such as generative AI and search engines.
OpenAI is placed in a more direct competitive position with other digital voice assistants, such as Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, and Amazon’s Alexa, due to the voice assistant feature of ChatGPT.
OpenAI “conducted collaborative efforts with prominent casting and directing experts to refine more than 400 submissions before choosing the five voices.”
The actors for these voices traveled to San Francisco in June and July last year to participate in their recording sessions. OpenAI stated that each individual was compensated “above market rates” for their contributions and added that “even more” voice options would be introduced.
Online, Johansson has already been the target of AI mimicry. She initiated legal proceedings in November against an AI application developer for utilizing her name and image in an online advertisement.
She was recently cited as an example in a class action lawsuit against an AI startup accused of misappropriating celebrities’ voices alongside Conan O’Brien and singer Ariana Grande.
The estimated net worth of Altman is one billion dollars. In contrast to OpenAI, in which he does not own any equity, Altman’s wealth and status as a billionaire result from a succession of profitable investments.
This includes investments in Stripe, a fintech startup that recently floated Reddit, and Helion, a nuclear fusion initiative. Before establishing OpenAI, Altman founded the social navigation company Loopt and was a partner and president at the startup accelerator Y Combinator.
