Scarlett Johansson Said No, but OpenAI's Virtual Assistant Sounds Just Like Her

Previous discussion <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40421225">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=40421225</a>

An interesting question is how many distinct voices are there? I think there is a good possibility there may be thousands of people who sound like this.

OpenAI met with &quot;Sky&quot; voice actress in San Francisco in June and July, months before first contacting Scarlett Johansson, perhaps &quot;Sky&quot; voice reminded someone at OpenAI of Scarlett Johansson&#x27;s voice and that&#x27;s where the idea of contacting the actress was born.<p>I think if OpenAI never contacted Scarlett Johansson and Sam Altmam never posted &quot;Her&quot; on Twitter, there wouldn&#x27;t be any controversy because it wouldn&#x27;t look like they chose &quot;Sky&quot; voice just because it resembles the actress.

It starts off with, &quot;Days before&quot;. However, we all know from her actual post, that it was only &quot;2 days before&quot;. While 2 days falls under that, 2 days vs say 6 days make it even more damning. Since it&#x27;s one day short of being able to say &quot;hours&quot; before. Many regular people may first hear about this through the Times, so wish they would have been more precise with the first word.

In case you’re wondering what Sky sounded like, here’s a recording of Sky being asked questions about Scarlett Johansson.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;1zoLfQ75QvU?si=6iBLrwTFR4nbqIIw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;1zoLfQ75QvU?si=6iBLrwTFR4nbqIIw</a><p>While it doesn’t sound exactly like her, if I heard this without knowing it was AI I’d have thought it was Scarlett Johansson.

1) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240521162046&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;05&#x2F;20&#x2F;technology&#x2F;scarlett-johannson-openai-voice.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20240521162046&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytim...</a><p>This is the least surprising thing I&#x27;ve seen OpenAI do.

It should be possible to find a voice artist for hire that sounds like Scarlett Johansson in &quot;Her&quot; when you can fingerprint voices, model them, and quantify the differences.

It doesn’t sound like her enough. Unless they found something very specific it was clearly just another voice actress that sounds close to her.

Its just one voice of several choices, right? I think I would pay to not listen to her. I have no idea why so many people are obsessed with her of all people.