Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson expressed “shock” and “anger” over OpenAI’s recent release of a chatbot featuring a voice strikingly similar to her own.
Johansson revealed that she had previously declined an offer from the company to lend her voice to the chatbot, which reads text aloud to users.
When the new model, named Sky, was unveiled last week, many quickly noted its resemblance to Johansson’s tone in the 2013 film Her.
OpenAI announced on Monday that it would remove the voice, maintaining it was not intended to imitate Johansson.
However, Johansson accused OpenAI and its founder, Sam Altman, of intentionally replicating her voice, according to a statement seen by the BBC.
“I was shocked, angered, and in disbelief when I heard the demo,” Johansson stated. “Mr. Altman even hinted at the similarity intentionally, tweeting the word ‘her,’ a reference to my role in Her, where I voiced the AI system Samantha.”
In Her, set in the near future, Johansson’s character Samantha, an operating system, forms an intimate relationship with a human, played by Joaquin Phoenix.
Johansson, a two-time Academy Award nominee, said she was initially approached by Altman in September about voicing the new chatbot.
“[Mr. Altman] believed my voice could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives, helping consumers feel at ease with the significant changes AI brings,” Johansson explained. “He thought my voice would be comforting.”
However, she ultimately declined the offer for personal reasons.
Two days before Sky’s release, Altman contacted her agent, urging her to reconsider her refusal. Johansson disclosed that she had to hire lawyers and sent two legal notices to OpenAI to investigate how the voice was created.
“In an era of deepfakes and concerns over personal likeness protection, these are crucial questions that require absolute clarity,” she wrote.
