The GPT-4o that rolled out last week is reminding everyone of the parallels between the 2013 movie "Her" and the multimodal's ability to mimic emotions. It is not just the voice functionality that is getting massive attention but also the uncanny similarities the voice assistant Sky shares with Scarlett Johansson.
After Scarlett Johansson expressed her displeasure with ChatGPT's 'Sky' voice sharing eerie similarities with her voice, it is now being disabled
In the movie Her, Johansson voiced an AI interface named Samantha, which was set for the near future. The movie revolves around the voice assistant's emotional capabilities, extending to the point where the user shares a romantic relationship with the AI operating system. With the new GPT-4o upgrades and its potential to mimic emotions while using a voice for Sky that sounds like the famous actress, we cannot help but feel the concerns of the inspiration.
One of the major updates to ChatGPT was the voice functionality added with the new GPT-4o. The LLM uses a realistic voice, the tone of which varies according to the prompts. The conversational interface allows users to have a natural-sounding real-time conversation. The multimodal model is distinctive in its ability to emotionally adapt to situations and conversations. OpenAI launched a handful of voices in 2023, including Cove, Breeze, Juniper, and Sky.
In a post on X by Bobby Allyn, the statement by Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI situation expressed her disbelief and shock over OpenAI going for a voice that sounds exactly like her for Sky. In the tweet, she mentioned how Sam Altman previously pursued her for voicing the ChatGPT 4.0 to bridge the gap between humans and AI. Scarlett said she declined the offer, but after the recent release, her peers and family, as well as the community, all noted the eerie similarities between the voice used by Sky and that of Scarlett Johansson. The actress is now moving forward with the legal resolution for this uncalled-for situation.
Meanwhile, OpenAI clarifies the criteria for choosing the voices in a blog post, where it mentions how, for the Voice Mode, an extensive process is followed to select professional voice actors who are compensated above the market for lending their voices for the feature. It further went on to clarify the particular controversy regarding the Sky voice. OpenAI expressed how the imitation pointed out was not intentional and belonged to another professional actress. It did not give any further details on the voice actor behind Sky in an attempt to protect their privacy.
In a separate post on X, OpenAI shared their decision to temporarily pause the Sky Voice until the controversy is settled. However, the decision to take down the voice for good is not stated.
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