Well, that statement lays out a damning timeline:<p>- OpenAI approached Scarlett last fall, and she refused.<p>- Two days before the GPT-4o launch, they contacted her agent and asked that she reconsider. (Two days! This means they already had everything they needed to ship the product with Scarlett’s cloned voice.)<p>- Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with Sam tweeting “her” in reference to Scarlett’s film.<p>- When Scarlett’s counsel asked for an explanation of how the “Sky” voice was created, OpenAI yanked the voice from their product line.<p>Perhaps Sam’s next tweet should read “red-handed”.
Altman often uses tactical charisma to trap gullible people, government entities, and any unsuspecting powerful person for his ends. He will not bat an eyelid to take whatever unethical route if that gives him "moat". He relentlessly talks as if "near-term AGI" is straining to get out of the bottle in his ClosedAI basement. He will tell you with great concern about how "nervous" or "scared" (he said this to the US Congress[1]) of what he thinks his newest LLM model is gonna let loose on humanity.<p>So he's here to help regulate it all with an "international agency" (see the reference[2] by <i>windexh8er</i> in this thread)! Don't forget that Altman is the same hack who came up with "Worldcoin" and the so-called "Orb" that'll scan your eyeballs for "proof of personhood".<p>Is this sleazy marketer the one to be trusted to lead an effort that has a lasting impact on humanity? <i>Hell</i> no.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38312294">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38312294</a><p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40423483">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40423483</a>
Well, this confirms that OpenAI have been shooting from the hip, not that we needed much confirmation. The fact that they repeatedly tried to hire Johansson, then went ahead and made a soundalike while explicitly describing that they were trying to make it be like her voice in the movie … is pretty bad for them.
Isn't OpenAI mostly built upon disregarding the copyright of countless people?<p>And hasn't OpenAI recently shown that they can pull off a commercial coup d'état, unscathed?<p>Why would they not simply also take the voice of some actress? That's small potatoes.<p>No one is going to push back against OpenAI meaningfully.<p>People are still going to use ChatGPT to cheat on their homework, to phone-in their jobs, and to try to ride OpenAI's coattails.<p>The current staff have already shown they're aligned with the coup.<p>Politicians and business leaders befriend money.<p>Maybe OpenAI will eventually settle with the actress, for a handful of coins they found in the cushions of their trillion-dollar sofa.
From the Ars Technica story[1], this is very funny:<p>> But OpenAI's chief technology officer, Mira Murati, has said that GPT-4o's voice modes were less inspired by Her than by studying the "really natural, rich, and interactive" aspects of human conversation, The Wall Street Journal reported.<p>People made fun of Murati when she froze after being asked what Sora was trained on. But behavior like that indicates understanding that you could get the company sued if you said something incriminating. Altman just tweets through it.<p>[1] <a href="https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/openai-pauses-chatgpt-4o-voice-that-fans-said-ripped-off-scarlett-johansson/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/openai-pauses-ch...</a>
I found the whole ChatGPT-4o demo to be cringe inducing. The fact that Altman was explicitly, and desperately, trying to copy "her" at least makes it understandable why he didn't veto the bimbo persona - it's actually what he wanted. Great call by Scarlett Johansson in not wanting to be any part of it.<p>One thing these trained voices make clear is that it's a tts engine generating ChatGPT-4o's speech, same as before. The whole omni-modal spin suggesting that the model is natively consuming and generating speech appears to be bunk.
Johansson has money to hire lawyers and immediate access to media, so they backed off.<p>Altman and OpenAI will walk over everyone here without any difficulty if they decide to take whats ours.
I think it’s interesting that Johansson chose to forgo substantial royalties and collaboration potential<p>But it must feel pretty fucking weird and violatory when you spend your entire life thinking about how you are going to deliver certain lines and that’s your creative Body of work, and then for someone to just take that Voice and apply it to any random text that can be generated?<p>I get why she wouldn’t want to let it go.<p>In a way it is similar to how a developer might feel about their code being absorbed, generalized, and then regurgitated almost verbatim as part of some AI responses<p>But in the case of voice it’s even worse as the personality impression is contained in the slightest utterance… whereas a style of coding Or a piece of code might be less Recognizable, and generally applicable to such a wide range of productions<p>Voice is the original human technology, To try to take that from someone without their consent is a pretty all encompassing grab
Really not a smart idea for OpenAI to do this when one of the top Congresspeople represents the Hollywood area, is about to be elected Senator, and already has a bill ready to require AI companies to abide by copyright:<p><a href="https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2024/04/adam-schiff-ai-video-games-metaverse-generative-ai-copyright-disclosure-act.html" rel="nofollow">https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2024/04/adam-schiff-ai-video-games...</a>
I think we should all strive to meet the standards of “Weird” Al Yankovic. He set out to do something that was widely hated by a very powerful and litigious sector, and yet after a full career he is widely revered by both the public and the industry. He masterfully sidestepped any problems by adhering to the basic concept of consent while still getting what he wanted 99% of the time.
The more I find out about Altman the more I agree with the previous board about removing him. The guy just feels sleazy to me. Though he is doing what I want and that is not giving a fuck about artificial monopolies granted by government ie copyright
This is the first I've heard of this, but I've used the "Sky" voice extensively and never once thought it sounded like Johansson. Has anyone else noticed a similarity? To me they sound pretty different, Johansson's voice is much more raspy.
Sam Altman appears to not be smart enough to realize how much damage his unbridled selfishness and weaselry are capable of doing to Open AI.<p>They have no moat, they can't fix hallucinations, and people are starting to realize it's nowhere near as useful or close to AGI as he's been saying. If they hate him too, this ship is sunk.<p>What a bloody arrogant idiot.
I really hope she sues the company to hell and back.<p>She has the resources to fight back and make an example of them, and they have the resources to make it worthwhile.
I watched the keynote and many of the demo videos and never once thought, "That sounds just like ScarJo."<p>That said, the timeline she lays out is damning indeed.
First they lie to you saying they will save the world. Then they take from you saying they're using them to make the world a better place. Then they rule you, saying "there are no other ways".<p>All the while many people believe them at every step.
I know there are people here who think you should be able to use a person's likeness for whatever but regardless of how you feel, I don't think you can disagree this is a pretty bad look and does not reflect well on Altman or OpenAI.
Maybe I'm crazy but I don't think the voices are even that similar. I simply don't believe that her closest friends could not tell the difference.
I can't fathom such a bad decision as asking someone for permission to use their voice and doing it anyway after they say no. It's almost like NYT is currently suing them for unauthorized use and they should really not be making such an amateur mistake.
At this level of copyright infringement, Now I 100% believe that it’s fully trained on YouTube and other copyright videos, audio, books etc. they don’t care about using any public data or paying a dime as long as they can build a model with it , they will never disclose the data used and won’t allow anyone who quit to talk about it , blackmailing them with equity.
Has Sam already tweeted how sorry he is? All things considered, this might actually give people perspective on how weird OpenAI has been when it comes to respecting other people’s property.<p>The top comment in this thread is crazy too, they probably contacted her two days prior to launch on the off chance that they could use her as a marketing puppet.<p>Lost for words on this one.
This is interesting to hear and if she decides to sue there's extremely clear precedent on her side.<p>The fact that they reached out to her multiple times and insinuated it was supposed to sound like her with Sam's "her" tweet makes a pretty clear connection to her. Without that they'd probably be fine.<p>Bette Midler sued Ford under very similar circumstances and won.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co</a>.
> 4. Naughtiness<p>> Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination.<p>> Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications.<p>"What We Look for in Founders", PG<p><a href="https://paulgraham.com/founders.html" rel="nofollow">https://paulgraham.com/founders.html</a><p>I think the more powerful you become, the less endearing this trait is.
SJ mentions deep fakes.<p>It is quite possible that OpenAI has synthesized the voice
from SJ material.<p>However
If OpenAI can produce the woman who did is the current voice,
and she has a voice nearly identical that of SJ
would that mean OpenAI had done something wrong?<p>Does SJ since she is a celebrity hold a "patent" right
to sound like her.<p>The more likely scenario is that they have hired a person
and told her to try and imitate how SJ sounds.<p>What is the law on something like that?
I enjoyed this comment [1] on the Reg's article on this story:<p><i>Hurray, OpenAI has found a new lucrative market. Horny incels.</i><p>[1] <a href="https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2024/05/21/scarlett_johansson_openai_accusation/#c_4865702" rel="nofollow">https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2024/05/21/scarlett...</a>
If we're talking about the voice from the "Say hello to GPT-4o", then this is clearly not Scarlett J.<p>They have similar voices, but SJ has more bass and rasp.<p>And if it's true that OpenAI hired a different actor, then this should basically be case closed.<p>The voice of Sky (assuming that's the same as the demo video), sounds like a run of the mill voice actor tbh. Great, but not that interesting or unique.
I chose the voice a lot of time ago just because it sounded nice, I've never thought of a similarity to Scarlett even after the Sama tweet.<p>The real problem, now, is that they don't have a nice working voice anymore.
i think openai would do better if they had principles, values, etc. around responsibility and ownership.<p>it doesn't seem like principles should matter. but then the bill of rights doesn't seem like it should matter either if you were to cold read the constitution (you might be like - hmm, kinda seems important maybe...).<p>it compounds culturally over time though. principles ^ time = culture.<p>"Audacious, Thoughtful, Unpretentious, Impact-driven, Collaborative, and Growth-oriented."<p><a href="https://archive.is/wLOfC#selection-1095.112-1095.200" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/wLOfC#selection-1095.112-1095.200</a><p>maybe "thoughtful" was the closest (and sam is apologetic and regretful and transparent - kudos to him for that). but it's not that clear without a core principle around responsibility. you need that imho to avoid losing trust.
Recent and related:<p><i>OpenAI pulls Johansson soundalike Sky’s voice from ChatGPT</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40414249">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40414249</a> - May 2024 (96 comments)
So they wanted Johansson's voice, she declined, they chose another voice actress who sounds somewhat similar. Can someone explain why that is bad? I don't really get it.
What an unforced error on OpenAI's part, but revelatory to all of us how their leaders actually see the world around them: either people whose likeness and style to copy like Johansson or chumps like the rest of us who would marvel at the regurgitated synthetic likeness.<p>And really, how much worse would the demo have been if they hadn't cloned Johansson's voice, and instead used another unknown voice? If it was similarly flirty, we'd have fallen for it anyways.
Only partially related: One thing I often wonder with generative tools, and even before that with the explosion of gobal artists' publishing online:<p>When is it infringing to make something that looks or sounds like somebody famous? I mean, there's only so many ways a human voice voice can sound or face can look. At what point are entire concepts locked down just because somebody famous exists or existed that pattern matches.
Again. After Johansson was approached to be hired for the voice then another AI company tried to clone her voice without her permission.<p>Doesn't matter around similarity. There was nothing fair-use around this voice and it is exactly why OpenAI yanked the voice and indirectly admitted to cloning her voice.<p>[0 <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38154733">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38154733</a>]
One interesting legal caveat is that the Sky voice isn't "ScarJo", it's ScarJo as acted in the movie Her.<p>An issue with voice actors having their voice stolen by AI models/voice cloning tech is that they have no legal standing because their performance is owned by their client, and therefore no ownership. ScarJo may not have standing, depending on the contract (I suspect hers is much different than typical VA). It might have to be Annapurna Pictures that sues OpenAI instead.<p>Forbes had a good story about performer rights of voices: <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2023/10/09/keep-your-paws-off-my-voice-voice-actors-worry-generative-ai-will-steal-their-livelihoods/" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/rashishrivastava/2023/10/09/kee...</a><p>IANAL of course.
Damning would be a side by side comparison of voices to assess the claim. We have the technology.<p>ChatGPT using Sky voice (not 4o - original release): <a href="https://youtu.be/JmxjluHaePw?t=129" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/JmxjluHaePw?t=129</a><p>Samantha from "Her" (voiced by ScarJo): <a href="https://youtu.be/GV01B5kVsC0?t=134" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/GV01B5kVsC0?t=134</a><p>Rashida Jones Talking about herself
<a href="https://youtu.be/iP-sK9uAKkM" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/iP-sK9uAKkM</a><p>I challenge anyone to leave prejudice at the door by describing each voice in totality first and seeing if your descriptions overlap entirely with others. They each have an obvious unique whispiness and huskiness to them.
While GPT4-o tried hard to sound like the movie Her, there's no way the voice is a "clone" of SJ. It's only similar. We shouldn't be able to own the rights to similar sounding voices to our own.<p>Their efforts to copy the Her character mannerisms is still annoying. They were aiming for the Her-like personality. But it's a stretch to say it's a copy of Johansson's voice. The haze in her real voice isn't there in GPT. Maybe they decided to pull the voice because it's not good publicity to have Scarlett Johansson pissed off with you.<p>Nevertheless these tech companies should hire professional film writers and artists to help with difficult concepts such as <i>original ideas</i> and <i>not copying other's work</i>.
Has this industry learned nothing?<p>I don't know guys, the super hyped up company with next-gen technology might just be using crime, underhanded tactics, and overstating their capabilities to pull in the thing we all love... and it's not each other or your friend's mother!<p>It's money!
Given the sequence of events, Scarlett Johannsson suing OpenAI is a logical outcome. Sam Altman, of all people, should be anticipating this outcome for sure.<p>Assuming Sam Altman is not stupid, this could be part of some elaborate plan and a calculated strategy. The end goals could range from immediate practical outcomes like increased publicity (see ChatGPT's mobile app revenue doubled overnight: <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chatgpts-mobile-app-revenue-saw-142718162.html" rel="nofollow">https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chatgpts-mobile-app-revenue-s...</a>) and market impact, to more complex objectives like influencing future legal frameworks and societal norms around AI.
Remember when the OpenAI board said Sam was "not consistently candid" and most people here advocated he be reinstated and how dare the board? They are speedrunning the Google "Don't Be Evil" rug-pull. Not allocating the superalignment team resources they were promised, "don't criticize OpenAI or mention there's an NDA or you lose all your equity"...
Evil genius territory.<p>When the offer was declined by scarjo, they could still train on her works of art and just hire a soundalike to make recordings regardless of whether they used it during training.<p>Then, at release time - either they get the buzz of artist-licensed "Her" or they get the buzz /outrage/Streisand of unlicensed "Her". Even if they take it down, OpenAI benefits.<p>I feel like the folks who fear the tech are wrong. But when the supposed stewards do such a moustache-twirling announcement, it seems like maybe we do need some restraint.<p>If a trade group can't put some kind of goodwill measures in place, we will inevitably end up with ham fisted legislation.
This is hilarious. OpenAI didn’t even need to press for this voice, their technical demo was impressive enough, but they did and now it’ll cast a shadow over a pretty impressive AI advancement. In the long term though, this won’t matter.
What would happen if there was someone else in the world with exactly the same voice as Scarlett (or very, very similar) and they expressed a desire to work with OpenAI? Would Scarlett still have the right to prohibit its use?
They should have used the voice of HAL 9000.
<a href="https://youtu.be/ARJ8cAGm6JE?si=iscBkXp1uwXmPBzR&t=63" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ARJ8cAGm6JE?si=iscBkXp1uwXmPBzR&t=63</a>
Maybe this "non-profit" shouldn't be entrusted with one of the most potentially dangerous and world changing techologies in 80 years if they can't ethically handle providing a voice to their model.
Does Sam has any more reputation to burn? Seriously, who would genuinely trust him at this point?<p>I mean I know he has hundreds of blind followers but good Lord, you would think that the man, with all his years of experience had some sense to introspect about what he is trying to achieve vs how he is going about it.<p>Money really does blind all our senses, doesn't it?
Again, I must recommend everyone read Jaron Lanier's "Who Owns The Future".<p>It's an excellent book, and so so many of the issues raised in it are playing out blow-by-blow.
It’s stuff like this that gives me 0 trust in Altman. Drama follows the guy everywhere and it’s likely because he brings it on himself with questionable morales and actions.
> He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comronable with the seismic shalt concerning humans and Al. He said he felt that my voice would be
comforting to people.<p>To me, that reads like the same kind of snake oil he sold Elon when he proposed the joint founding of OpenAI.<p>I can just about imagine the books in his private library. The Prince. 48 Laws of Power. Win Friends and Inference People.
"Sky" voice has been the default for about 8 months now, I think, if it resembles Scarlett Johansson so much, why does no one seem to have mentioned it before?
> and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.<p>Very interesting to see this there. Does anyone know how could that be legislated?
The fact that they did it anyway and only took it down after legal threat tells you these are not the people you want to be in charge of such powerful systems. They want their cake and to eat it too, and regular humans be screwed over in the process. I think a relinquishment of power is in order. OpenAI should truly be open and there should be large public discussion forums regarding changes moving forward.
I always figured it was Bari Weiss. Still do. She released an interview with Altman in May of 2023 and Sky was released in September 2023 as far as I know.<p>Given that connection, I think it's plausible. They have a similar voice and given Bari's experience in podcasting could be a sensible choice if OpenAI wanted Scarlett but couldn't make it happen.
>Last week, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati told me the Sky voice was not patterned after ScarJo.<p>>"I don't know about the voice. I actually had to go and listen to Scarlett Johansson's voice," Murati said.<p>Seems like a big part of Mira’s job is not knowing things. How is no one questioning how she landed a VP job at OpenAI 2 years after being an L5 PM?
Out of curiosity, how can this be enforced?<p>I assume that they didn't get Scarlett's voice directly but they hired someone who sounds similar to use it for the system.<p>Is it illegal to hire similar sounding voice actor?<p>If I, for example, sound very similar to Stephen Fry, would I not be allowed to record audio books because he _owns_ his voice and any similar voice?
Anyone care to bet Microsoft and other investors are actually ok with this narrative? I think they are, and in fact may be advocating for Sam to advance this narrative, because they 1) want a court decision, no matter which way it goes, and 2) they're confident OpenAI has more capabilities in the pipeline
There are models that are nearly as good as GPT-4 now. For personal usage, I've been using them for a while now. OpenAI has jumped the shark so much that I'm going to advocate for moving to Anthropic/Google models at work now. OpenAI simply can't be trusted while Sam is at the helm.
This article was on CNN a few days ago. Probably relevant: <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/tech/voice-actors-ai-lawsuit-lovo/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/tech/voice-actors-ai-lawsuit-...</a>
They should have copied die voices from <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)</a> instead. Would have been like Amazon removing 1984 from customers Kindles..
This is why OpenAI being the "leader" in the space worries me. We need to be building trust in AI systems, not leaning into what the public perception is. On the other hand, maybe it's good they are showing who they really are.
I understand her concerns but I think it's a very hard problem. Being "similar" is very subjective.<p>Moreover, what if some actor has a similar voice to her and records and sells an audiobook? What if this actor signs a contract with OpenAI?
If they used a different voice actress, then it should be trivial to simply tell everyone who she is (She could probably benefit from the publicity), and show the hundreds of audio samples, all dated before this kerfuffle.<p>Problem solved.
Reminiscent of the movie The Congress, in which Robin Wright's character, a famous actor, is hustled by a movie studio into giving up her likeness for them to continue making films starring her, in perpetuity.
Sam Altman doesn't inspire confidence in where AI companies are going with user consent. And the board can't even remove him even if he takes OpenAI to the wrong path. He is the board and the company.
The most interesting aspect of this debacle, in my opinion, is that with new technologies that allow you to impersonate and/or recruit artists with minor modifications, the figure of "movie star" and the artist itself will be significantly diluted.<p>For example, I would love to see all of the Bourne books adapted into live-action films, but I know that will be impossible. In the future, I believe it would be great to see some AI actors who are not related to any famous actors/actresses perform the same screenplay: of course, if the book is licensed to that AI movie.<p>[1] - <a href="https://bourne.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bourne_Directory" rel="nofollow">https://bourne.fandom.com/wiki/The_Bourne_Directory</a>
At this point it’s time to create lists of “ethical” AI services, ones that aren’t OpenAI nor other bad actors. I’m dropping my ChatGPT Plus today. Any suggestions on what to replace it with?
Wanting to imitate <i>Her</i> is rather ironic: It’s like watching <i>Wall Street</i> and wanting to be Gordon Gecko, or watching <i>Gattaca</i> and wanting to genetically engineer humans.
Too bad she didn't agree to it. It's the only voice they currently have that I can stand. Hey OpenAI, can you maybe try stealing Morgan Freeman's voice next instead?
Interesting to see how the more upvotes and comments this thread gets, the further DOWN it goes on the frontpage, despite being more recent than almost everything above it.
If it spurs on the movement to create legislation controlling how likenesses are used in AI models, Sam Altman has done himself a great disservice here.
Most of the reactions here are in unison, so there's little left to contribute in agreement.<p>I'll ask the devil's advocate / contrarian question: How big a slice of the human voice space does Scarlett lay a claim to?<p>The evidence would be in her favor in a civil court case. OTOH, a less famous woman's claim that any given synthesized voice sounds like hers would probably fail.<p>Contrast this with copyrighted fiction. That space is dimensionally much bigger. If you're not deliberately trying to copy some work, it's very unlikely that you'll get in trouble accidentally.<p>The closest comparison is the Marvin Gaye estate's case. Arguably, the estate laid claim to a large fraction of what is otherwise a dimensionally large space. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharrell_Williams_v._Bridgeport_Music" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharrell_Williams_v._Bridgepor...</a>
She should be humbled to have been selected. If AI is going to do one thing, its going to be the dethroning of the Hollywood elite. If a regular person had their voice cloned, it would not be news. The only reason it is news is because she is rich and powerful.<p>Celebrities need to get used to the fact that they will soon be no more important to a corporation than any other rank and file employee. AI is already able to conjure up whatever voices and personas we need at the ready and make the concept of actors all but a thing of the past.
Just couple of days ago I discussed “Her” in context of Sky voice of ChatGPT, and how it reminds me of the movie.<p>It’s interesting to see how it unfolding.
Combined with Murati’s reaction when asked if they trained Sora on YouTube videos, it’s obvious that OpenAI has trained their TTS systems on a whole bunch of copyrighted content including the output of professional actors and voice actors who definitely weren’t compensated for their work.<p>Altman and Murati are world-class grifters but until now they were stealing from print media and digital artists. Now they’re clashing with some of the most litigious industries with the deepest pockets. They’re not going to win this one.
I'm not a fan of Sam Altman, but this is such a non-issue. The solution is simple: adapt and find new ways to be creative in the world of AI. Copyright is becoming a thing of the past and rightly so. We just have to collectively accept this and move on because laws won't stop it.
LLMs are built on top of mass theft and get away with it due to it being "derivative work". I find it strange that stealing her voice was the "this has gone too far" moment and not when they started mass scraping the internet.
OpenAI has successfully stolen the intellectual property of millions of people to incorporate into their product, so why would they fear stealing someones voice at this point? I hope she wins. Maybe it'll set some kind of precedent.
Such a nothing burger.
Do moralists not get tired of picking up pitchforks?<p>Imitating a movie AI was a cool idea and imitation was the only legal way to do it.<p>Do you pull your hair when companies advertise with Elvis impersonators?<p>Nobody was significantly harmed by this, I can guarantee the rich people that use hacker news consume things from much less savory standards than imitating a celebrity.<p>Nestlé is strong but you pull the plug at THIS?<p>Pg has done worse and he owns this forum.<p>Have some perspective.
Sam messed with the wrong girl. In the end his firing was the correct thing to do. The "bad guys" of the company were doing the correct thing and like Jesus, we crucifix them.
Too bad nothing substantive will happen to them.<p>The worst of it is not that this one person is being ripped off (that's bad enough and I hope she gets some kind of resolution). The worst of it is that it shows the company and the people behind it who are making the big decisions are dishonest and unethical.<p>All the alleged "safety" experts in corporations and in government policy and regulators? All bullshit. The right way to read any of these "safety" laws and policies and regulators is that they are about ensuring the safety of the ruling class.
Many of OpenAI's productization ideas make more sense when you remember that the guy in charge also thought Worldcoin and it's eye scanning or were a good idea.
The CEO of Huggingface had to do the "hold my beer" thing and suggest people train an open source model of her voice on Twitter and Linkedin. Can't make this level of detachment up.
Sam Altman is an absolute scumbag. Fuck ClosedAI. Hope this company and its VCs crash and burn like Theranos.<p>Maybe Altman lands in jail or files for bankruptcy after all the dust settles.
Oh wait Altman and team acting like they rule the world?!<p>If that box wasn’t in your bingo card I’m sorry, it’s basically the center/free box at this point.
What's the difference between an algorithm training on someone's voice, and a human baby listening to a voice and growing up to speak the same way? Would you punish the baby for that? It's exactly the same thing.
Hot take. The lesson for OpenAI is to STFU. Always. This is always the best thing to do. STFU. You wanted to emulate her voice? Should have done it anyway and not told a soul. You know why? Because there are tens of thousands of women who sound like that. It's a very generic voice and accent. Let's be real here. Many of us have seen her movies and had we not read the controversy we would not have made the connection. All OpenAI had to do was move forward with intent and let HER prove its HER voice, and not a generalization of many similar women's voices that could be found in the public domain applied towards a process that collapsed into something resembling her and many other women's voices.<p>In the not so distant future, when the world's top AI models can generate endless accents and voices at will, the probability of one of those sounding just like you (and thousands of other people) will be high. It will be VERY high.<p>All this dealing with Hollywood and music industry and all the crap i've been reading about OpenAI trying to wiggle their way into those industries is absolute damn nonsense. What is Sama thinking?! GO BACK TO BEING NERDS AND STFU.<p>If you really believe you are going to create a real AGI, none of this is relevant. No one is going to thank you for creating something that can replicate what they value in seconds. Do it anyway.<p>And remember, STFU.
What are the chances that among 7 billion people in the world that there are always going to be 100 people that sound like you? If Sam Altman was going for a particular voice, there are probably 100 people that indistinguishably have that voice and it just becomes a question of a headhunt.