When OpenAI announced its latest ChatGPT last week, the AI voice used in its demo was quickly compared to Scarlett Johansson’s voice in the 2013 sci-fi film “Her,” but now the company says that ‘she withdraws her voice.
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When OpenAI announced its latest ChatGPT last week, the AI voice used in its demo was quickly compared to Scarlett Johansson’s voice in the 2013 sci-fi film “Her,” but the company now claims that ‘she withdraws her voice.
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OpenAI offers an AI assistant voice for the latest version of ChatGPT that draws comparisons to actress Scarlett Johansson’s voice in the sci-fi romantic drama “Her,” which centers on a man who falls in love with the female voice from his computer. operating system.
The company said in a post on X that voice acting would be paused as it answered “questions about how we chose voices in ChatGPT.” A company spokeswoman declined to provide further details.
In a blog post published shortly before midnight PT on Sunday, OpenAI said the voice of the AI in question, known as “Sky,” was developed from the voice of another actress whose identity the company said it was not revealing to protect his privacy.
“We believe that AI voices should not deliberately imitate the distinctive voice of a celebrity – Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural voice,” the company wrote.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who said the 2013 Spike Jonze film was his favorite film, invited the comparisons by posting the word “She” to X after the company announced the ChatGPT version.
The new model, known as GPT-4o, turns the successful chatbot into a voice assistant capable of interpreting facial expressions, detecting emotions and even singing on command.
The new voice assistant will be available to the public in the coming weeks. During a live demo last week, some OpenAI employees adopted a knowing and flirtatious tone, leading some to wonder if this flirtatious attitude was an intentional ploy to keep employees engaged. people in the AI system.
A publicist for Scarlett Johansson had no immediate comment.
In an interview with NPR last week, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, said the company didn’t model any ChatGPT voices on Johansson’s sultry computer voice in the film.
“It says more about our imagination, our storytelling as a society than it does about the technology itself,” Murati said. “The way we developed this technology is not based on a movie or a science fiction story. We’re trying to build these machines that can think and have a solid understanding of the world.”
“I don’t know about the voice. I actually had to go and listen to Scarlett Johansson’s voice,” she said.
When asked about ChatGPT’s flirtatious banter, Murati said the model simply responds to what people provide it.
“He will respond to how you interact with him,” she said. “It’s not predefined. It’s based on inputs,” Murati said.
In its Sunday evening blog post, OpenAI said the chatbot was developed with five voices produced after working closely with voice and screen actors.
“Looking ahead, you can expect even more options as we plan to introduce additional voices to ChatGPT to better meet diverse user interests and preferences,” the company wrote in the post.
A day after OpenAI’s announcement, Google held its annual developers conference where it unveiled its own AI personal assistant, also voiced by a woman, known as Project Astra. Although similar, Google’s version seemed much less pleasant and fun and more factual.
Together, experts say, the products provide a glimpse into the next generation of cutting-edge AI technologies — and also raise questions about the risks that come with it as more people adopt these tools.
Visar Berisha, a professor at Arizona State University who studies AI voice technology, said it is difficult to predict how advanced AI voice assistants that speak with human personalities will change society.
“Voice communication is really intimate, really impactful. It allows AI to express subtleties, things that are perceived as sincere, urgent, joy, concern,” he said. “And all of this serves to foster a deeper connection between user and machine. You can see how these interactions can potentially become addictive.”
It’s possible, Berisha said, that people will begin to make emotional connections with AI systems, much like the plot of “Her” — a movie that doesn’t end well for the protagonist.
“When I first saw this movie, it looked like science fiction,” Berisha said. “That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.”
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