Scarlett Johansson told OpenAI not to use her voice — and she’s not happy they might have anyway

Scarlett Johansson told OpenAI not to use her voice — and she’s not happy they might have anyway

Photo by Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images

Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI asked her to be the voice behind ChatGPT — but that when she declined, the company went ahead and created a voice that sounded just like her. In a statement shared to NPR, Johansson says that she has now been “forced to hire legal counsel” and has sent two letters to OpenAI inquiring how the soundalike ChatGPT voice, known as Sky, was made.

“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson writes. She says that Altman contacted her agent as recently as two days before the company first demoed the ChatGPT voice asking for her to reconsider.

Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI situation. Wow: pic.twitter.com/8ibMeLfqP8

— Bobby Allyn (@BobbyAllyn) May 20, 2024

Altman has made it clear that he admires Johansson’s work. He’s said that Her, which features Johansson as an AI voice assistant, is his favorite film; after the ChatGPT event last week, he posted the word “her,” seemingly in reference to the voice demo the company presented, which featured an assistant that sounded just like Johansson.

OpenAI said this morning that it was pulling the voice of Sky in order to address questions around “how we chose the voices in ChatGPT.” The Verge has reached out to OpenAI for comment.

Johansson says she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” over how “eerily similar” the voice of Sky sounded to herself. OpenAI said the voice comes from an actor who they hired who is speaking in their normal speaking voice. The company declined to share the actor’s name, citing privacy concerns.

The voice of Sky has been available since OpenAI launched ChatGPT’s voice mode last September. But the connection to Johansson wasn’t as clear until last week when OpenAI demoed an updated AI model that made the voice more expressive. The demo had an uncanny similarity to Johansson’s assistant in Her, leading to headlines and even a Saturday Night Live joke about the comparison.

At least for the time being, Johansson seems to just want an explanation. She says she’s looking for “resolution in the form of transparency” and has asked OpenAI to “detail the exact process by which they created” the voice of Sky. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati previously told The Verge that the voice of Sky was not designed to sound like Johansson. Earlier today, Joanne Jang, model behavior lead at OpenAI, told The Verge that the company was “in conversations” with Johansson’s representatives over their concerns.

A representative for Johansson sent the same statement to The Verge. It’s printed in full below:

“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.

After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named “Sky” sounded like me.

When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word “her” - a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.

Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there.

As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the “Sky” voice. Consequently, OpenAI reluctantly agreed to take down the “Sky” voice.

In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”