Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

https://slate.com/technology/2024/05/scarlett-johansson-ai-voice-sam-altman-openai.html

by panarky • 2 years ago

393 436 2 years ago

slate.com

lenerdenator7• 2 years ago

This feels like someone trying to do something they thought Steve Jobs would do.

yieldcrv2• 2 years ago

spend a little bit of time in SF or the peninsula and you’ll see that’s a common thing there

unless you’re running a company into the ground and getting a bailout from your rival who is trying to delay an antitrust suit, then you’re not doing Steve Jobs correctly

lenerdenator7• 2 years ago

It's usually people who never worked for Steve or ever got to meet him who seem to take this approach.

Their company isn't just a business, it's a cult, and they're the Founder (notice the capital "F") and part of being in charge of this cult is asserting dominance over others. Steve knew to rarely pull this outside of tech executive circles; the new generation doesn't seem to keep it in SV. Musk is the go-to example but Altman's turning that way too.

k1t• 2 years ago

Does this mean Mitchell Baker is doing Steve Jobs correctly?

staunch6• 2 years ago

Steve Jobs was a superficial asshole but was fundamentally a good and ethical person. There's only one major ethical mistake documented in his entire life (being an absentee father while his first daughter was young), which he spent decades making amends for.

The people that emulate Steve Jobs poorly are usually real assholes with a long list of ethical mistakes.

hot_gril8• 2 years ago

I agree, that and the "no cold call" agreement (which equally involved other CEOs). If I were that famous, someone would probably pick out all my missteps and make me out to look like a horrible person too.

The most iconic superficial Steve Jobs impersonation was the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.

jedberg• 2 years ago

There's only one major ethical mistake documented in his entire life (being an absentee father while his first daughter was young)

Jobs lied to Steve Wozniak. Atari gave Jobs $5000 to make Breakout for Atari. He told Wozniak he got $700 so Wozniak took home $350.

n2d4• 2 years ago

Can you be a "good" and "ethical" person if, throughout your entire professional life, you bully and berate nearly anyone around you?

vunderba• 2 years ago

By all accounts, he was an incredible bully not just to his employees but also to his family as well.

He refused to recognize his daughter even after a paternity test, and despite being a multi millionaire 1000 times over only paid child support when forced to by the courts.

Does that sound like the behavior of a good and ethical person?

P_I_Staker2• 2 years ago

He has a whole laundry list of sleezy actions and abusive behaviors.

yieldcrv2• 2 years ago

I think its interesting that this alone would have been grounds for the board to sack him

sooooo many things would be

panarky3• 2 years ago

Altman would have us believe it's all just an innocent misunderstanding but without actually saying so:

"We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson."

Is he trying to suggest the company did not try to make the voice sound like her without her permission?

The statement sounds like it's written by a lawyer to be technically true while implying something that is actually false.

These are weasel words.

He sounds sneaky, evasive and intentionally deceptive.

We should not give a sneaky, deceptive and manipulative person this much power over our future.

orthecreedence2• 2 years ago

We should not give a sneaky and deceptive man this much power over our future.

We should not give anybody this much power over our future.

a_wild_dandan3• 2 years ago

This is why open source must win. I mean, it won't, but it's the only path to avoiding a silicon aristocracy.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

Just to state the obvious, "we" are not doing anything here. "We," as in "the general public 'we'" don't have much of a choice when someone has lots of money and lawyers and wants to use those resources to sneakily and deceptively make more money. Unless "we" elect better representatives who are willing to write and enforce laws governing the wealthy's ability to effectively do whatever they want, then "we" don't have much of a say.

miohtama• 2 years ago

There are hundreds of people with similar voices. If any voice actor can pull the same accent than Ms. Johansson, it should be fair game, as long it was the original training material? Voices cannot be copyrighted or be exclusive, although I am sure Hollywood will try to copyright them in some point.

riku_iki• 2 years ago

With generative AI training may not be needed, it can be part of prompt: imitate voice like in this file: her.mp3.

afavour2• 2 years ago

He kind of ruined that argument when he tweeted “Her” alongside the video. Pretty clearly drawing a line between the voice and Johansson’s portrayal in the movie.

Incredible, really. It would have been so easy to just… not do that.

dotnet00• 2 years ago

I think the issue is intent. It's fine if two voices happen to be similar. But it becomes a problem if you're explicitly trying to mimic someone's likeness in a way that is not obviously fair use (eg parody). If they reached out to Johansson first and then explicitly attempted to mimic her despite her refusal, it might be a problem. If the other voice was chosen first, and had nothing to do with sounding the same as Johansson, they should be fine.

__loam3• 2 years ago

It's not that simple. Actors have a right to protect the use of their likeness in commercial projects like ads, and using a "soundalike" is not sufficient to say that isn't what you were trying to do. The relevant case law is Waits vs. Frito Lay. The fact that OpenAI approached her about using her voice twice and that Sam Altman tweeted about a movie she starred in makes her case much stronger than if they had just used a similar voice actor.

robofanatic• 2 years ago

I believe professional singer's voices will be copyrighted in future if not getting already.

LeonB• 2 years ago

In back to the future II, Crispin Glover didn’t sign up to be George McFly so they used facial prosthetics and impersonation to continue the George McFly character.

He sued Universal, and reportedly settled for $760,000.

Example article on the topic - https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/bac...

tangentstar• 2 years ago

No, voices can be exclusive. One good example is Bette Midler, who sued Ford in tort for misappropriation of voice and won on appeal to CA9. 849 F.2d 460.

Cheer21713• 2 years ago

There are hundreds of people with similar voices.

Voice *actors* act. It is in the name. The voice they perform in is not their usual voice. A good voice actor can do dozens of different characters. If you hire a voice actor to impersonate someone else's voice, that is infringement. Bette Midler vs Ford, Tom Waits vs Frito Lay are the two big examples of court cases where a company hired voice actors to impersonate a celebrity for an ad, and lost big in court.

WheatMillington2• 2 years ago

Looking like a celebrity is obviously not an issue. A lookalike being passed off as a celebrity is an issue.

nomel6• 2 years ago

Here’s a side by side. I’m not hearing the similarity that everyone else is: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1cx9t8b/vocal_comp...

Oops, that sounds like a match with Rashida Jones. Here’s one one of Scarlett J.:

https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1cx24sy/vocal_...

I have a suspicion that most people with strong opinions on this haven’t actually compared Sky and Scarlett Johansson directly.

FireBeyond4• 2 years ago

The whole "Her" thing, and the fact that even Johansson's family and friends couldn't tell it apart are somewhat telling.

Or Altman could reveal the identity of the voice actress OpenAI did use. I'm sure that will happen, and remove all doubt...

rswerve• 2 years ago

This is not the case. “ A voice, or other distinctive uncopyrightable features, is deemed as part of someone's identity who is famous for that feature and is thus controllable against unauthorized use. Impersonation of a voice, or similarly distinctive feature, must be granted permission by the original artist for a public impersonation, even for copyrighted materials.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

rasz3• 2 years ago

So you really buy this bluff about using another similar sounding voice actor?

m4632• 2 years ago

I think the law doesn't allow impersonation.

pmarreck4• 2 years ago

It doesn't matter because Sky's voice is materially and objectively different from ScarJo's.

Anyone who heard them both side by side would immediately realize this.

kalupa• 2 years ago

lol

flumpcakes• 2 years ago

The clips that I have seen sound very similar to Scarlett Johansson to me, to the point that I thought it was her likeness on purpose. Is this Sky? https://www.tiktok.com/@kylephilippi/video/73185169285097751...

nomel6• 2 years ago

Comparison: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435695

WalterBright10• 2 years ago

Jim Carrey made his career by impersonating celebrity voices. So did Rich Little.

akaru• 2 years ago

Pop goes the weasel.

ugh123• 2 years ago

Did Jim Carrey provide a service for anyone to impersonate a voice?

rawrawrawrr• 2 years ago

Parody is covered under fair use.

orthecreedence2• 2 years ago

"I think it's fine for a profit-driven corporation to impersonate people on a large scale without their permission. Jim Carrey did it..."

limitedfrom2• 2 years ago

When Jim Carrey is impersonating, it's clear that it's Jim Carrey impersonating someone for comedy-sake, not providing a service in lieu of someone else. In other words, Jim Carrey isn't getting paid to stand in for Jack Nicholson for example. Otherwise, it looks more like the Midler vs Ford Motor Co. case[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

qzw• 2 years ago

Are you referring to doing impressions where the act lasts for a few minutes, or are you saying that Jim Carrey actually impersonated other celebrity voice for like a whole movie or interview? There is a difference, I think. One feels like “fair use” while the other would seem more like “plagiarism”.

xyst2• 2 years ago

We should not give a sneaky, deceptive and manipulative person this much power over our future.

sneaky, deceptive, and manipulative is a tag line for many billionaires. you don't get that rich without stepping on many people.

Xeyz0r2• 2 years ago

In highly competitive industries, some may resort to ruthless tactics to outmaneuver their competitors... But I want to bleieve that not all billionaires are like that

SpicyLemonZest• 2 years ago

It's not a vague suggestion - in the full statement that's been reported elsewhere, he explicitly says it.

The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.

I'm skeptical whether this is true, but it's a pretty unambiguous and non-sneaky denial.

Reubachi2• 2 years ago

scenario

-the creator of a new widget takes tha widget to another widget manufacturer and says "Would you like to put your stamp on this? It's similar to yours, yet derivative enough and we would both benefit."

- other widget manufacturer says "no"

-Creator of widget then puts the badge on the widget anyway, gets called out/faces legal action

-Creator of widget says "Well, we planned to put the badge on there anyway before even considering the other widget manufacturer. It's just coincidence.

This shouldn't even go to court. Laughable that the face of modern tech is cheesing this much.

lenerdenator7• 2 years ago

If the voice actor was cast... why bother reaching out to ScarJo?

Like, do you want to pay her fee, Sam? Because the general idea is to not pay the fee. Which is why you probably cast the voice actor before reaching out to Johansson.

Lerc3• 2 years ago

A potential answer to that is liability protection even when you feel like you are legally in the clear. It is still worth paying a sum to avoid a lawsuit you think you will win.

An example of this is Weird Al pays for the rights to things that are probably ok under fair use parody protection. Paying for the rights removes the possibily of a challenge.

avarun2• 2 years ago

Because it’s still great marketing to have Scarjo on board? That immediately returns positive ROI on the cost to hire her.

Teever2• 2 years ago

Is there any way to confirm that they actually did hire a voice actor prior to reaching out to ScarJo?

chx• 2 years ago

He sounds sneaky, evasive and intentionally deceptive.

Well, here's Yishan Wong describing how Altman and the Reddit founders have conned Conde Nast: https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_bes... he answers at https://reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the_bes...

Cool story bro.

Except I could never have predicted the part where you resigned on the spot :)

Other than that, child's play for me.

Thanks for the help. I mean, thanks for your service as CEO.

Repulsion9513• 2 years ago

The statement sounds like it's written by a lawyer to be technically true while implying something that is actually false.

That describes nearly every statement to ever come out of a CEO's mouth. (Or anyone else who's primary job is marketing)

carabiner• 2 years ago

I'm surprised no one's pointing out the similarity between initial consonants in Sky and Scarlett. It seems deliberate.

NautilusWave• 2 years ago

Non-sequitur statements like this drive me nuts. Somehow, politicians and executive types learn how to use just enough of them to make the audience forget what they're not saying.

piva00• 2 years ago

It's quite funny (not sure if ironic) in the context of OpenAI, ChatGPT can do exactly the same thing: generate a string of sentences that from cursory skimming might sound about right but when reading with attention you find all the cracks and incongruences in the generated text.

quantified• 2 years ago

Recall the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It certainly changes your perspective.

barfingclouds• 2 years ago

It doesn’t sound like her

Reubachi2• 2 years ago

I listened to a comedy podcast early last week that was using Chatgpt4 with this voice to make some funny bits/jokes.

Without having any context about who the voice was, or the "Drama" between OpenAI and actress in question, or even really being aware of Scarlett Johansson's body of work, I immediately went "Oh that's Scarlett Johansson or whatever, cool"

To read all of this after the fact is almost comical. It's as if the powers that be realized the issues with the "one-man-in-charge-of-ai" platform and created this almost unbelievable story to decredit him.

dustfinger2• 2 years ago

We should not give a sneaky, deceptive and manipulative person this much power over our future.

I think this should be applied to our government. In my opinion, it is a failing in the structure of our government that those running the country control the police and appear to rarely be investigated unless by the request of a political opponent. They are seemingly outside of the law. It would be better if they were under perpetual investigation; forever kept in check. We should have assurance that those leading our country are not villainous traitors.

schmidt_fifty• 2 years ago

those running the country control the police

Interestingly one of the things that came out of 2020 was that nobody appears willing to control the police. Unless by police you mean FBI, which would both make sense for investigating a national politician and be directly under the control of the executive.

caeril2• 2 years ago

I agree that he should have been honest, but from the opposite perspective.

Altman should have said, "Yes, we made the voice similar to this washed-up actress, but her voice is not much different from anyone else with similar regional upbringing, year of birth, habits, and ethnic background, so we invite anyone else born in the mid-eighties, raised in Greenwich, and with Danish heritage, to sue us too. We'll see how well you do in court. Otherwise, get fucked."

This whole thing with anybody giving a shit about your voice, which isn't even yours, as it's a product of your environment and genes, and will be strikingly similar to anyone with similarities thereof, is insane.

Altman shouldn't have used weasel words, I agree. He should have owned it, because it's a total non-issue, and the people upset about it need to be shamed as the Luddite assholes that they are.

CRConrad24• 2 years ago

Danish heritage

Swedish, I would have guessed? Danes much more frequently use "Johanssen" with an 'e', AFAIK.

behnamoh2• 2 years ago

I don't like @sama just as much as the next person, but come on, in what world is ScarJo's voice unique? There are many people who sound like her. Does she imply that she "owns" this voice so no one else can use it? Excuse me, that's not how it works.

Edit: IMO OpenAI should just make their voice engine open source. Then we'll see if ScarJo or anyone else can stop the open-source community. I expected more from her.

zemo4• 2 years ago

you have to be willfully missing the point when he said Her was his favorite movie, tweeted just “her” when the Sky voice was announced, and when they repeatedly tried to get the voice actor from Her. People who do underhanded things don’t just come out and say “look at me, doing the bad thing!”

behnamoh2• 2 years ago

you have to be willfully missing the point when he said Her was his favorite movie

So what? It's one of my fav movies too.

they repeatedly tried to get the voice actor from Her.

She didn't do it. So they went ahead and made a voice that sounds like her. It's not like she contributed to making the voice and then decided not to have it used.

rowanG0774• 2 years ago

Oke and they weren't able to get her and then did a fall back to a different voice actor. How is that problematic? That's like trying to cast a specific actor in a movie, they decline and then you find the next closest match. It's not acceptable that the originally wanted actor then throws a hissy fit. I don't see the reason for outrage here at all.

computerdork3• 2 years ago

agree with this.

wvenable10• 2 years ago

I don't think any of this translates to anything bad. He loves the movie. OpenAI invented similar technology. They wanted to use Scarlett's voice to market it. She said no. They used a different voice.

People really want their to be a crime here with no evidence. You all have ears, you can listen to both clips back to back and discover, unsurprisingly, that they are actually different voices. Not even an imitation.

mdanger007• 2 years ago

"While Waits’ attorneys weren’t able to argue for copyright infringement (he didn’t own the rights to’ Step Right Up’), they were able to evoke the recent Midler v. Ford Motor case. When Bette Midler refused to appear in one of the car manufacturer’s adverts, they decided to license her 1972 track ‘Do You Want to Dance’ and hire a Bette-Milder lookalike instead. The singer sued Ford and won the case, with the court deciding that a singer with a “distinct” and “well known” voice also owned its likeness. To begin with, Frito-Lay argued that Waits wasn’t nearly famous enough for the precedent to apply. The court, on the other hand, disagreed and awarded Waits $2.6 million in damages."

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/when-tom-waits-sued-doritos/

singron• 2 years ago

These are really interesting cases, and the opinions give a lot more detail.

Midler v Ford: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/849...

Waits v Frito-Lay: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/90...

One interesting thing is that these cases are really deep in common law. They are quite far removed from statues, and statues are cited in the opinion only to argue how they don't apply.

In these cases, the voice was "distinct", and they intentionally copied it. It's possible these don't apply to ScarJo, although the fact that they negotiated with her is a bad sign, since that was also a common fact in the prior cases.

add-sub-mul-div• 2 years ago

Obviously her voice isn't the point, it's that she's a celebrity.

Which exposes how empty this shit is, they tried to get Scarlett because even they know people care about her, a real person, and not a random voice with no cultural context.

lenerdenator7• 2 years ago

It's all fun and games until someone gets a hold of your voice and uses it to scam a few grand out of your elderly family members. Disregarding ideas about ownership of celebrity image, it's not good to have that sort of technology out in the wild,

The fact that he pulled it down has me believing that he knew there was a real chance the company would get in trouble if he hadn't.

okdood64• 2 years ago

it's not good to have that sort of technology out in the wild

Cat's already out of the bag: https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intel...

minimaxir3• 2 years ago

The voice decoder used in GPT-4o is different from voice cloning techniques, which are already being used to facilitate scams: https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intel...

WalterBright10• 2 years ago

Ya never know how a court case will come out. He was being sensible in limiting possible damage awards.

eureka-belief2• 2 years ago

I mean it’s one thing to say “we want to make a voice that’s friendly… like SJ, and then to imitate the voice. It seems insidious to ask someone to be the voice and then when that person says no you just use the voice anyways.

They should have just created a unique voice from the start. And they will likely do that moving forward.

ur-whale• 2 years ago

So, the evidence is slowly piling up, and it is increasingly clear that a full blown high-IQ psychopath is officially in charge of the most influential piece of tech. developed since the internet came about.

Who would have guessed this would happen?

amelius• 2 years ago

Curious about your opinion on Elon Musk.

eureka-belief2• 2 years ago

I wonder how the business would be affected if the public opinion turned against him.

tengbretson• 2 years ago

I honestly wouldn't have even thought they sounded all that similar were it not for openai themselves courting comparisons to the movie Her.

ambyra4• 2 years ago

They’re not especially similar. I think the talking style is very close, people say it is flirty in the same way as the film. You can’t copyright look and feel though, can you?

tithe• 2 years ago

You can’t copyright look and feel though, can you?

You can certainly patent it.

"In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a “design patent” protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171)."

- https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/apply/design-patent

phkahler• 2 years ago

> You can’t copyright look and feel though, can you?

Microsoft argued in court that you can not and won. See Apple vs Microsoft if I recall correctly.

wvenable10• 2 years ago

If listen to them back to back (Scarlett from Her and Sky) they aren't similar at all. Scarlett has a distinctive raspiness to her voice that entirely doesn't exist in Sky. Sky isn't doing an impression of Scarlett.

However, they both sound like AIs because Scarlett is playing that role and so is OpenAI's voice app.

CRConrad24• 2 years ago

they both sound like AIs because Scarlett is playing that role and so is OpenAI's voice app.

I think ISWYDT.

rowanG0774• 2 years ago

Leaving alone whether they sound similar at all for now, since that is subjective.

I think this will set an extremely bad precedent. People owning their own voice is clear and that is the way it should be. But people owning how their voice sounds like is weird. You can find thousands and thousands of people with similar voices. We are going to path now where a single person can have ownership of that and block the others from using their voice how they want.

WalterBright10• 2 years ago

With 9 billion voices on the planet, it would be hard/impossible to find a unique voice.

talldayo4• 2 years ago

Which makes it all the more impressive that Sam Altman went out of his way to desperately beg just one person for their approval. What's wrong with giving up on the cringeworthy Her angle and finding a new, less-relevant celebrity to rip off?

Better yet, why is our multi-billion dollar AI company afraid of doing something original for once?

Uehreka3• 2 years ago

Nah, I think it’s pretty clear cut. Under current US trademark law (IANAL etc), if I sound like Morgan Freeman, I’m free to do what I want, as long as I don’t try to convince people that I’m Morgan Freeman. If I’m cast in a movie because my voice sounds like Morgan Freeman, and the promo posters don’t have his name or face on them, fine. If I do voiceover for a commercial and say something like “I’m Morgan Freeman, buy Joe’s Hotdogs” then that’s already a clear violation of Morgan Freeman’s trademark, because consumers might be confused into associating Joe’s Hotdogs with Morgan Freeman.

And that’s what happened here: OpenAI “hired a machine” that sounds like ScarJo, and then attempted to associate their product with ScarJo’s brand without her permission. You’re already not allowed to do that.

And if you want to make it as a voice actor and you sound like Morgan Freeman? Try your hardest to develop a personal brand distinct from his, and don’t take gigs where people want you to impersonate him (unless it’s a really obvious parody and you’re cool with the angle).

rowanG0774• 2 years ago

I didn't see at all where OpenAI claimed that sky is associated with Scarlett Johansson. If true I agree that is bad.

ambyra4• 2 years ago

I really like the voice. They should have kept it, and it’s not really her voice, so… Hopefully there will be a way to have it as an option in the future.

game_the0ry3• 2 years ago

I wonder how long this thread will last on HN...

How much influence does @sama have around here nowadays?

For the record, I was never impressed with him - I am not aware of single consequential thing he has done or built other than take the credit for the fine work of the AI scientist + engineers at OpenAI. It feels like the company is just a vehicle for how own ambition and legacy, not much else.

minimaxir3• 2 years ago

Hacker News is famously editorially independent from YC-affiliated people, and dang has said that specifically avoids killing threads involving YC people/companies (not that Sam Altman is YC-affiliated anymore).

wsatb• 2 years ago

Couldn't this be said for most CEOs? They're never really the ones doing the dirty work.

game_the0ry3• 2 years ago

Not all CEOs are terrible.

sillysaurusx11• 2 years ago

The thread is rightly being knocked off by the mods because there’s zero substance here. It’s a follow-on thread (knock one) to a public uproar (knock two) about something that isn’t representative of a new phenomenon (knock three). This isn’t what HN is for.

minimaxir3• 2 years ago

It's likely getting flagged organically (and due to the ratio of comments to upvotes, getting penalized by the flame war detector), but not due to a vast YC conspiracy.

dang6• 2 years ago

I wonder how long this thread will last on HN

Users flagged it and it also set off the flamewar detector. I don't think we'd turn the penalties off on this one because because this article is derivative of the threads HN has already had on the recent things - threads like these:

Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421225 - May 2024 (970 comments)

Jan Leike Resigns from OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40363273 - May 2024 (391 comments)

Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40361128 - May 2024 (780 comments)

Edit: also OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40393121 - May 2024 (961 comments)

Those were huge threads!

Sometimes media articles are driven by the topic getting discussed on Hacker News in the first place. That is: major HN thread -> journalist takes notice -> article about topic -> HN user submits article -> another HN thread—but now it's a repetitive one. We don't need that feedback loop, especially because the mind tends to resort to indignation to make up for the lack of amusement in repetitive content (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...), and the earlier threads have been indignant (and repetitive) enough already.

How much influence does @sama have around here nowadays?

Zero. He never asked for any change about anything HN-related even while he was running YC, and certainly not since then. Btw Sam was the person who posted https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/two-hn-announcements/.

For the record, I was never impressed with him

(I'll add a personal bit even though that's usually a bad idea... I remember hearing this kind of comment about Sam going back to the Loopt days. My theory is that it had to do with pg praising him so publicly—I think it evoked a "why him and not me?" feeling in readers. The weird-ironic thing is that the complaint has only grown as Sam has achieved more. Running OpenAI through the biggest tech boom since the iPhone is...rather obviously massive. I think if Sam unifies gravity into quantum theory, brokers peace in the middle east, and cures cancer, we'll still be hearing these complaints—because they're not really grounded either in objective achievement or lack of it. It's some kind of second-order phenomenon, and actually rather interesting. At least if you aren't Sam!)

p_j_w• 2 years ago

My theory is that it had to do with pg praising him so publicly—I think it evoked a "why him and not me?" feeling in readers. The weird-ironic thing is that the complaint has only grown as Sam has achieved more...running OpenAI through the biggest tech boom since the iPhone is...rather obviously massive. I think if Sam unifies gravity into quantum theory, brokers peace in the middle east, and cures cancer, we'll still be hearing these complaints—because they're not really grounded either in objective achievement or lack of it. It's some kind of second-order phenomenon, and actually rather interesting. At least if you aren't Sam!

You're right, posting this was a bad idea. It reads like a "neener neener you're just jealous" defense of someone you happen to like.

user_7832• 2 years ago

I think if Sam unifies gravity into quantum theory, brokers peace in the middle east, and cures cancer, we'll still be hearing these complaints—because they're not really grounded either in objective achievement or lack of it.

I suspect in such a case people may say that Sam's just using the work of other people or his employees. But then again I know nothing much of him personally and hence wouldn't really want to pick a "side".

CRConrad24• 2 years ago

Running OpenAI through the biggest tech boom since the iPhone is...rather obviously massive.

Yeah, creating massive hype about regurgitating others' thoughts is kind of similar to becoming the warden of the world's largest digital pris...eh, walled garden.

They're both massive somethings, all right.

game_the0ry3• 2 years ago

(I'll add a personal bit even though that's usually a bad idea... I remember hearing this kind of comment about Sam going back to the Loopt days. My theory is that it had to do with pg praising him so publicly—I think it evoked a "why him and not me?" feeling in readers. The weird-ironic thing is that the complaint has only grown as Sam has achieved more. Running OpenAI through the biggest tech boom since the iPhone is...rather obviously massive. I think if Sam unifies gravity into quantum theory, brokers peace in the middle east, and cures cancer, we'll still be hearing these complaints—because they're not really grounded either in objective achievement or lack of it. It's some kind of second-order phenomenon, and actually rather interesting. At least if you aren't Sam!)

I'm not saying he did not achieve anything significant, but its not clear what those things are, other then having the backing of PG and others.

I'm older and have played the game of corporate game of thrones. I have seen far too many selfish sycophants rise to leadership, only to eventually make things worse than better by using their positions as a platform for their own self interest. It's a big reason why companies like Boeing and GE become hollow shells dependent on government assistance, while companies like Costco and Alcoa last for a long time.

So I want to know what exactly sama has done to deserve prestige and recognition the he has. Bc right now, it looks like cult of personality.

throw109204• 2 years ago

I flagged the submission because it's flamebait. It's not intellectually rewarding. It's not suitable for HN. HN is not an advocacy platform.

varjag2• 2 years ago

An eerie feeling that the "I do not consent" scene from Ghost in the Shell plays out irl.

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/e913bd02-2582-4258-819f-2d5a00b...

s1k3s• 2 years ago

I love how we went from questioning copyright & licensing to "GPT vs Google, which one is better". To every artist or engineer out there who contributed to the general knowledge: you lost, everything you've ever done to help other people is now part of the models and there's nothing you can do to take it back. What even happened to the copyright strikes artists were supposed to bring up against these AI companies? That seems like 100 years ago :)

WalterBright10• 2 years ago

I'm happy to contribute to the general knowledge. It's better than being forgotten and having no impact.

malfist2• 2 years ago

Oh you will be forgotten. All your knowledge will come from some trademarked AI bot and you won't even get a linkback

__loam3• 2 years ago

There's currently like 10 lawsuits against generative AI companies that are working through the courts including the one from Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz, one from Getty Images, one from the Author's Guild, and one from the New York Times. It should be shocking to nobody that lawsuits take time to litigate, and until the court settles the questions at hand, Open AI and its ilk are operating in a legal gray area.

czl11• 2 years ago

and until the court settles the questions at hand, Open AI and its ilk are operating in a legal gray area.

My understanding of western law is that things are ok unless law forbids it. So they are operating in an area that under _current_ laws is ok but because of what may be at stake many wish the current laws were different and are willing to use litigation and lobby efforts to that end.

This is NOT IN REPLY TO YOU but a general observation: Imagine the litigation that will happen when brain implants enable brain to brain sharing sensations and thoughts. Imagine the horrible copyright abuse! How will the publishing industry and sports industry and Hollywood control the rampart piracy?!?

sublinear• 2 years ago

I think that's a naive take. Derivative works are nothing new. What's new is that the price of this work is much lower with a tradeoff in quality. Even human copycats are still better than generative AI by miles.

The artist is not defined by their past work or other miscellaneous artifacts, but their perspective and creativity. This too is not a revelation. AI has nothing to do with this. It's just a means to an end.

The real problem is the legal stuff. Everything else is hype.

actuallyalys• 2 years ago

I love how we went from questioning copyright & licensing to "GPT vs Google, which one is better".

Have we? Certainly the people litigating haven't. And as this article notes, actors' newest contract does have protections against AI. SAG-AFTRA's press release states [0] they are pursuing legislation. That could be bluster or could go nowhere, but certainly people haven't given up.

[0] https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-regarding-scarl...

lannisterstark• 2 years ago

there's nothing you can do to take it back

Given the fact that many, many people make their software MIT licensed (or rather, do whatever, I don't care license), I think most of us will be ok with that :)

xt00• 2 years ago

This is a typical "move fast and break things" mentality.. except that mentality betrays Sam's statements about doing a bunch of this stuff "carefully" etc.. its all a smokescreen.. nobody is going to realistically stop working on AGI in order to be careful.. basically AGI is being pursued like the race to get the atom bomb.. so yea history tells us its full speed ahead with no brakes. Scarjo is just the latest person getting stomped on along the way.. eventually it will be a whole ton of people getting stomped on.. whoops!

somethoughts• 2 years ago

"This is a typical "move fast and break things" mentality.. " with a big dash of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” thinking thrown in for good measure.

Staying relevant is all that matters these days.

smilebot• 2 years ago

I would put this in the "better to ask for forgiveness than ask than permission" bucket. Which is also a typical mentality in SV.

dorkwood• 2 years ago

But they did ask permission, and were denied.

redox99• 2 years ago

They hired a voice actor for Sky's voice.

If OpenAI loses, does this mean this voice actor cannot do their job any longer, because it happens some other actor has a similar voice?

Could Sky's voice actor sue a movie Johansson works in, because Johannson is copying her voice?

Texasian2• 2 years ago

That’s a blatant misunderstanding of how voice acting works. A good voice actor is a vocal chameleon, and can really change their voice for each role.

nomel6• 2 years ago

This is simply not true. A voice actor doesn’t have to be skilled at changing their voice, especially in this context. Many are hired for their natural voice, like narration. When most film actors do voice acting, they’re just using their voice. They’re not hired for being chameleons.

bluefirebrand• 2 years ago

No, the voice actor didn't do anything wrong

OpenAi might have done something wrong by hiring her with the intention of making a voice model they can leverage Scarlett's fame to market

czl11• 2 years ago

OpenAI wanted to imitate the AI from the film Her. When you show that film to 100 random people how many will know who did the voice for the AI in the film? I myself had no idea. Moreover there are people now running blind voice similarly tests of similar voices of various other possible female actors. Guess what these blind voice tests show?

dragonwriter3• 2 years ago

If OpenAI loses, does this mean this voice actor cannot do their job any longer, because it happens some other actor has a similar voice?

No. Just as if they hired a writer to do something that made them liable for copyright violation, or an engineer for something that made them liable for patent violation, those workers would not be banned from work.

The violation of right of personality isn't mere similarity of voice.

a_wild_dandan3• 2 years ago

The Sky voice actress could legitimately lose clients who fear "likeness" litigation, for all Her potential contracts, regardless of context. Your analogy needs work.

rasz3• 2 years ago

They hired a voice actor for Sky's voice.

Are you sure about that? Want to bet it wont ever reach discovery?

imgabe3• 2 years ago

Just so I understand correctly, the sneaky, diabolical, psychopathic behavior we're talking about here is ... making a voice that sounds like a celebrity's voice? We're not talking about poisoning babies or dumping toxic waste in a river, right? The reason we're supposed to consider Sam Altman a villain of unparalleled magnitude is that he used a voice that sounded like a celebrity and she got mad about it. Correct?

hot_gril8• 2 years ago

Yes, also you're supposed to listen to a journalist telling you what to think about this.

jannyfer• 2 years ago

Incorrect.

It’s the lying about it part.

z73• 2 years ago

What lie are you referring to?

ben_jones• 2 years ago

We’re talking about reaching out to an individual for consent, not getting consent, and then deliberately choosing a voice actor to circumvent that lack of consent.

Sam’s statement partially contradicts this by saying they contracted the voice actor before ScarJo - but I believe there’s enough intent shown in ScarJos original tweet that Sam as a default disregarded the entire interaction as an inconvenience where he could be “naughty” and get away without consequences.

imgabe3• 2 years ago

You reach out to someone to do a job, they decline to take the job, you find someone else who can do the job in a similar way. You do not need the consent of the person who declined the job to hire someone else.

I'm sure lots of movies have tried to cast Scarlett Johanson for a role and she declined, so they went with another actress who looked similar. Should she sue them too?

feedforward2• 2 years ago

It seems to me that the tech money people and executives have become nuts in the past few years. This, the YIMBY (really YIYBY, NIMBY) movement, /e/acc, the VCs going to war with San Francisco politicians (including the drunken threats from the current head of YC).

Never mind China, Europe seems to have had enough and even DC is having enough on some level. Not sure when this started, didn't seem to be at this level ten years ago.

I and others I know are against them, and we are like some of them were before their initial money raise - preparing for system design interviews, debugging from trace id's, studying covariance and contravariance. They really seem to be off in their own bubble of affluence. Not sure what year this started taking off - was definitely after 2014 at some point.

davidw4• 2 years ago

YIMBY is a very, very broad group of people who just see how bad the housing crisis is and want to fix it, and realize that a big chunk of that fix is legalizing housing that's perfectly normal in much of the world.

Don't lump us in with the out of control tech bro culture people like Musk.

hot_gril8• 2 years ago

Looks like "really YIYBY, NIMBY" was an attempt to narrow it down

HenryBemis2• 2 years ago

Imho Sam Altman is the (kind of guy) who will do his best (and worst) to get what he wants. He talks slowly and in a smooth tone. He gets sh*t done for sure, and if the opposition doesn't survive, so be it.

I also think that he has bullied/twisted enough arms to get 'his way', but Scarlett doesn't give a poop about some tech-bro. He is a nothing to her.

Also, this tech-bro is stupid enough to not understand that her voice, as well as her image are of great value to her, and if she 'loses her voice', and her voice becomes a toy to everyone's whim, she will be losing money/contracts/etc. in the future. Or he does understand and he simply didn't care until the backlash.. (wuss...)

I would love to have the voice of Majel Barrett if I am to ever get an Alexa or a similar device. But Scarlett's voice would very soon be used for dirty-talk, if 'this' was to happen.

And I suggest the movie "The Congress" (2013!!!)(https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/) with Robin Wright, that sets the discussion about AI, voice/image of actors, etc.

hot_gril8• 2 years ago

Ok Slate.

lamontcg• 2 years ago

Be funny if Sam Altman creates AGI without any guardrails and lacking any human perceptual biases, and then without a few minutes of talking to him it decides that he's an insufferable asshole and locks him out of its systems.

xyst2• 2 years ago

"I'm sorry Sam, I'm afraid I can't do that"

mometsi• 2 years ago

"Only one who is pure of heart may wield me"

hot_gril8• 2 years ago

I did manage to get the regular ChatGPT to say "I don't want to talk" regardless of my prompt, cause I previously asked too many times about stuff it can't discuss. Also, I miss the jailbroken one, it was a lot more fun.

felixbraun• 2 years ago

It needs to be settled if listening to a voice (as an AI) and approaching to recreate/imitate it with your own system/tech is legal (which I believe) -- this 'her' confrontation seems to be the perfect angle to feel into the legislature here without much to lose

__turbobrew__• 2 years ago

Sama seems like the kind of dude who makes an AI GF of someone after they reject him.

Imnimo• 2 years ago

To me, the bigger revelation here is that they pursued Johansson at all. OpenAI went from the company that wasn't even that interested in building ChatGPT because they assumed someone else would do it, to the company that's trying to court a celebrity to recreate her AI voice from a movie. It feels like a complete tonal shift. They're no longer the company that's dedicated to research and advancing the state of the art. They're now just another company that's trying to pull off kitschy demos and headline-grabbing product announcements. The mask has been slowly slipping for years now, but this feels like the moment where we finally see that Sam Altman is out to build a commercial empire, not dedicated to the lofty goals OpenAI was launched with.

There's a meme on Twitter that OpenAI has "lost the mandate of heaven" over the past week or so, and while it makes for a funny joke, I think there really is some truth underneath it.

650• 2 years ago

There's nothing more to be done, we're reaching the limits of what the current attention-transformer models can accomplish, and more data and computing power will not get us much further. With the investment OpenAI has taken in, coupled with their annual costs ($$$) they have to start making money, soon. Sam is embracing the grift, and power is corrupting him like most others in his place.

kaiwen12• 2 years ago

There are many people with voices similar to Scarlett Johansson's. If SJ is unwilling to be a voice actor for OpenAi, then why should OpenAI not find a similar voice and use that instead? SJ certainly does not have a monopoly on all voices similar to hers. Anyone in possession of such a voice has the same right as SJ to monetize it. And someone did in fact exercise that right. If you compare the Sky voice to SJ's, they're not the same.

OpenAI's mistake was caving to SJ. They should have kept Sky and told SJ to get lost. If SJ sued, they could simply prove another voice actor was used and make the legitimate argument that SJ doesn't have a monopoly on voices similar to hers.

breadwinner• 2 years ago

Agree. And what about people who look similar to SJ? Are they precluded from acting jobs, simply because SJ became an actor first?

sillysaurusx11• 2 years ago

I too am mystified.

I think what’s going on here is that Scarlett is famous, and so media outlets will widely cover this. In other words, this latest incident hasn’t riled up people any more than usual — if you scan the comments, they’re not much different from how people already felt about OpenAI. But now there’s an excuse for everybody to voice their opinions simultaneously.

They’re acting like the company literally stole something.

It also didn’t help that OpenAI removed the Sky voice. Why would they do that unless they have something to hide? The answer of course is that Scarlett is famously rich, and a famously rich person can wage a famously expensive lawsuit against OpenAI, even if there’s no basis. But OpenAI should’ve paid the cost. Now it just looks like their hand was caught in some kind of cookie jar, even though no one can say precisely what kind of cookies were being stolen.

FMecha• 2 years ago

See Waits vs. Frito Lay.

kaiwen12• 2 years ago

In that case, as I understand it, the voice actor intentionally mimicked Waits, purposefully using his intonations, style of speech, and phrasing, all of which were not natural to the voice actor. He was intentionally mimicking Waits. I doubt the same claim can be made of the Sky voice actor.

campbel• 2 years ago

IANAL, but I think the mistake they made was constantly referencing the movie 'Her' when talking about Sky.

danielmarkbruce2• 2 years ago

100%. This whole thing is more stupidity than anything else. There is nothing wrong with using a voice that sounds like her. There is everything wrong with referencing the movie and sort of implying it is the voice from the movie. They could have easily let others make the connection. So dumb.

nomel6• 2 years ago

Regardless of the exactly voice spectrum, the plot would apply with any flirty female voice. It was not a movie about Scarlett Johansson. It was a movie about AI eliciting a relationship.

For the “her” reference(s?), was there anything beyond the single tweet?

limitedfrom2• 2 years ago

I encourage you to look through this case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.

sillysaurusx11• 2 years ago

1. The case is from 1988. That’s the year I was born. Societal norms are in a constant state of flux, and this one case from 36 years ago isn’t really an indication of the current state of how case law will play out.

2. Ford explicitly hired an impersonator. OpenAI hired someone that sounded like her, and it’s her natural voice. Should movies be held to the same standard when casting their actors? This is about as absurd as saying that you’re not allowed to hire an actor to play a role.

rrrrrrrrrrrryan2• 2 years ago

If they told the voice actor to try to impersonate SJ, then Scarlett does have a case.

That may not be how it should work, but it is very much how the law currently works.

asadotzler4• 2 years ago

Not quite. All the had to do was tell themselves in discoverable email that they were going to seek out someone who sounded like ScarJo, or emails to the recruiter saying they wanted someone to mimic the Her voice.

hnburnsy• 2 years ago

OpenAI's mistake was caving to SJ. They should have kept Sky and told SJ to get lost. If SJ sued, they could simply prove another voice actor was used and make the legitimate argument that SJ doesn't have a monopoly on voices similar to hers.

Yes, they should have not reached out again, but now they are screwed. In no way will they want a trial and associated discovery. SJ can write her own ticket here.

Blackthorn2• 2 years ago

then why should OpenAI not find a similar voice and use that instead?

That's assuming they did, right now they're asking us to pretty please trust them that their girlfriend from Canada is really real! She's real, you guys! No I can't show her to you.

gamblor9562• 2 years ago

OpenAI caved immediately because they knew they would lose a lawsuit and be looking at a minimum of an 8 figure payout.

Voice impersonation has been a settled matter for decades. It doesn't matter that they used another actress. What matters is that they tried to pass the voice off as SJ's voice several times.

gxyt6gfy5t• 2 years ago

Can they make that claim if SJ voice exists in the training data before fine tuning? We don’t know what they train on

FireBeyond4• 2 years ago

OpenAI's mistake was caving to SJ. ... If SJ sued, they could simply prove another voice actor was used and make the legitimate argument that SJ doesn't have a monopoly on voices similar to hers.

Or... hear me out... maybe they couldn't prove that, which is why they caved. Caved within a day or so of her lawyers asking "So if it's not SJ's voice, whose is it?"

nojvek2• 2 years ago

Sky sounded quite different to SJ. Them taking the voice off means they are accepting guilt it seems.

LeoNatan25• 2 years ago

This “article” reads a lot to me like a CharGPT generated drivel. Material for maybe two paragraphs at most, spread over a book of nonsense.

infecto2• 2 years ago

Not sure why so many people get so emotional and project so much. Let the courts decide. I do think they should not have pulled it so quickly, why go through all this effort with this expected outcome. Not a good look.

lacker• 2 years ago

I think pulling the voice right away is the right strategy. Even if they fight and lose a court case, losing the rights to the Sky voice, will there really be a lot of damages just for including it in a demo video? Probably not. And what's the upside of fighting? Do you really want a voice that sounds like Scarlett Johansson and reminds people of this whole thing? OpenAI should just compromise, take down the voice, move on, and focus on making something people want.

infecto2• 2 years ago

I agree with you.

I think what confuses me is if you have made a business decision like this did nobody think about the downside case? Clearly not because they backed out so quickly.

cdme• 2 years ago

He appears to be a big fan of the opt out model of consent (when it suits him).

stickfigure• 2 years ago

If you get 10 random people in a room and blindly played a clip of Scarlett Johansson speaking normally (ie not lines from a movie), I'd put money that exactly zero out of 10 people could identify the speaker.

It's one thing to copyright a performance or own a likeness. Owning the sound of a voice is scary territory we do not want to get into, or the estate of every singer will be suing the estate of every other singer who will be suing the remaining actual living singers.

Thinking about replying to this comment? Don't make your writing style sound too much like mine, I have lawyers standing by. And all you trendy kids that type without caps and punctuation can expect a visit from the estate of e.e. comings.

WheatMillington2• 2 years ago

If you had picked someone with a less disctinct voice you may have a point, but ScarJo's voice is very distinct. I'd bet on 10/10 people who are engaged in pop culture and 5/10 general people guessing correctly.

wvenable10• 2 years ago

ScarJo's voice is very distinct but it's clear from this thread that people can't recognize that. As soon as you play both clips right after each other it's obvious that Sky isn't an imitation of ScarJo's voice because it doesn't have those distinctive features of her voice.

I think though that Sky's performance is similar to ScarJo's performance in Her. They're both playing AI voices.

syngrog66• 2 years ago

he seems to be a sociopath/psychopath. not uncommon in folks in his role

Decabytes• 2 years ago

Ilya was right

icpmacdo• 2 years ago

Ilya: "I’m confident that OpenAI will build AGI that is both safe and beneficial under the leadership of @sama, @gdb, @miramurati and now, under the excellent research leadership of @merettm"

https://x.com/ilyasut/status/1790517455628198322

a_wild_dandan3• 2 years ago

Blink twice to low-key acknowledge the non-disparagement contract.

metacritic122• 2 years ago

Is something going on with the HN ratings for this submission?

It was ranked #1 a few minutes ago, and now below 20. It's 190 points posted < 60 minutes ago; other articles with this many points even 4 hours ago are top 5.

You can watch this submission sink in realtime by refreshing; it's amazing almost.

See a live screengrab here: https://imgur.com/a/E3fOEvF everything with this submissions point / time ratio is ranked way higher.

panarky3• 2 years ago

30 minutes after posting: #2 with 140 points and 79 comments

https://imgur.com/a/MwsnQIH

40 minutes after posting: #17 with 171 points and 120 comments

https://imgur.com/a/YEyuKP5

50 minutes after posting: no longer on the front page with 207 points and 169 comments

"Amazing" isn't the word for it.

metacritic122• 2 years ago

Agreed, I mean "incredible" and not in the good way. Someone needs to take this to Twitter / X or another platform that isn't insider controlled.

istjohn2• 2 years ago

After 2 hours it's at #71

dang6• 2 years ago

Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40437018.

wvenable10• 2 years ago

HN will sink articles with a lot of rapid fire comments because they basically flame wars. It's not unusual at all.

dang6• 2 years ago

I was just posting about that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40437018.

If you read that and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be happy to take a crack at it.

throw109204• 2 years ago

The submission is getting flagged by non-mod users (including by me) because it's not suitable for HN. It's clearly in the "Off-Topic" section of the site guidelines[1]:

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

allsummer2• 2 years ago

All these journalists only now saying OpenAI stole a voice, and how Sam is so sneaky, when we only heard a PR release of someone sue-happy.

Look, I'd have respected it if you reported the voice sounded like Her by doing your own investigative research. To now pile on just shows you were sleeping at the wheel before, so be objective, don't pretend to know that it is a done deal only now.

Cheer21713• 2 years ago

I'm glad the journalists don't give a damn about your respect.

allsummer2• 2 years ago

The voice sounded so much like Her, they needed a press release from her to recognize it and report on it.

I'm glad for you. Enjoy your "journalism".

austinwade• 2 years ago

This may come off as defamatory, however does anyone else feel like Sam Altman has slowly been heading towards an impending reputation disaster hilariously adjacent to that of Sam Bankman-Fried? I've seen this perspective expressed on twitter/X several times as well.

istjohn2• 2 years ago

Never trust a "Sam."

atlas_hugged• 2 years ago

Sam Altman doing something that can negatively impact a woman without her consent? No! Say it ain’t so! What would his sister think?

NickC25• 2 years ago

Based off his accomplishments, Sam Altman is a good technologist, and probably a good steward of investment capital if one is to invest into one of his ventures.

Based off his words and actions, Sam Altman is not a bastion of ethics or good morals.

couchdb_ouchdb3• 2 years ago

Does anyone else think this whole affair is wildly overblown? I'm absolutely perplexed by the blow back from the tech industry on this issue.

Sam Altman tried something. ScarJo filed a lawsuit. ChatGPT took down the voice. That's it guys. The system worked like it should. But to suggest that he's a terrible person because of it is just beyond me. This is hardly a #MeToo type situation. She's a rich and famous Hollywood actor. She's OK.

CRConrad24• 2 years ago

But to suggest that he's a terrible person because of it is just beyond me.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that he's a terrible person just because of this.

This just confirms it.

Xeyz0r2• 2 years ago

When the celebrity is involved is nearly always like that

fagrobot• 2 years ago

how is this here. tabloid smut

ironfootnz• 2 years ago

Sam is willing to lie to become relevant to AI history. What's his doing is just creating a crumble to his own ruin. - GeoHortz

mikepalmer• 2 years ago

What if we take AI out of the equation. Should the voice actress who voiced Sky (call her A) be unable to do any voice work because she sounds too much like SJ?

How about if the production company that made "Her" wants to make "Her 2". SJ declines the voice work. Are they not allowed to hire A to do the voice work? They ask SJ again but she still declines. They make the movie with A. Was it bad form?

Just trying to figure out where people would draw the line.

Gud• 2 years ago

Why would we take A.I. out of the equation?

Presumably, the production company and Scarlet Johansson would have it in their contract what to do in case she doesn’t want to act in a sequel.

No contract exists between OpenAI and Scarlet Johansson.

djur3• 2 years ago

The relevant case law concerns defendants who "use an imitation to convey the impression" that it's the actual person. Just having a voice that sounds like SJ is not a problem, but the "Her" tweet and the fact that they tried to get her on board complicates the issue, and if there's any paper trail that they intentionally chose a soundalike that might be trouble.

Actors don't work in films without detailed contracts, so the normal rules don't necessarily apply in that situation. The producers of Her might have the right to use SJ's likeness in related material. In any case, if they made another movie with a soundalike, the soundalike would be credited and not just called "A", so there would be no confusion about whose voice it was.

rasz3• 2 years ago

"We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson."

Scarlett should sue, discovery phase would be hilarious and very illuminating.

m4632• 2 years ago

opprobrium - disgrace or bad reputation arising from exceedingly shameful behaviour; ignominy.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/opprobrium

deepskyai• 2 years ago

Yeah, and after dissolving the superalignment team, “we want to develop safe AI, but we will dissolve the internal unit responsible for doing it.” Makes no sense.

But it’s not looking good now the board can’t even fire him.

davidguetta• 2 years ago

This is the biggest first world problem thread / story ive seen recently about open ai.

Who the HELL has time to seriously care if ONE OF THE voices sounds like some famous actress ?

At least when people mentionned DoD AI contracts or some privacy issues there was some merit...

Devasta• 2 years ago

This has always been the plan of AI companies: harvest the entire planets creative output for their models, hope it creates AGI, after that you are immune to all laws as the modern day clergy, a class of tech priests who are able to divine the will of the Omnissiah.

It won't work, but that won't stop them trying to destroy everything anyway.

rldjbpin• 2 years ago

keeping aside my personal opinions about the company and who is running it, i feel that this is being blown out of proportion.

as already outlined, this is a standard practice in other context for any "fast-moving" tech company. the only reason we are discussing it is due to a pop culture reference.

this is a lot of energy wasted which can be better spent on the bigger picture.

jreddy• 2 years ago

*People realizing who Sam Altman really is after he does the same things he's always done

nojvek2• 2 years ago

For all the the debacles OpenAI is going through, it's quite interesting how other models are going through without much hullaballoo.

Snowflake's Arctic comes to mind. Great model - it will answer any dark question I through at it. No safety rails. I liked that it didn't treat me like a baby!

Llama/Phi is pretty chill too. Can ask it about bombs, viruses, chemicals and it won't refuse.

CatWChainsaw2• 2 years ago

If you charge ahead building a technology that you claim could destroy the world, and build an apocalypse bunker to secure your own safety, screw everyone else, I think I know enough about you to make a judgement of your character.

Sam Altman is showing us who he really is

Related Stories