ChatGPT pulls AI voice after comparisons to Scarlett Johansson 'Her' character

WASHINGTON (TND) — OpenAI announced Monday it was scrapping "Sky," one of the new voices of ChatGPT, after receiving a deluge of comments and criticisms for the AI vocalizer's similarities to an AI program portrayed by Scarlett Johansson.

The parent company of ChatGPT, the widely popular artificial intelligence chatbot, introduced five "voices" for the program during a demonstration last Monday of new products including updates and a new AI model called GPT-4o.

The voices like Sky, only available to premium subscribers to the chatbot, can both read back or vocalize answers given or hold conversations with users, taking the chatbot back and forth off of the web page and into sound waves.

However, OpenAI and ChatGPT were inundated with criticisms from users, and from social media rubberneckers, over the similarities between Sky's vocal tone and timbre with that of Johannson as the AI operating system, which eventually becomes sentient and falls in love with her human owner, "Samantha" in the Spike Jonze film "Her." Observers were also quick to note that Sam Altman made a post on X, formerly Twitter, simply saying "her" during the live stream of Sky's demonstration last week, fueling speculation about the implicit and explicit links between that 2013 science fiction movie and our emerging new scientific reality.

However, OpenAI attempted to push back against the emerging narrative that the company (un)intentionally brought the plot of a science fiction film to life Sunday, releasing a letter on its website explaining how they created the five voices of ChatGpt—Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky.

"Each of the five distinct voices you hear has been carefully selected through an extensive process spanning five months involving professional voice actors, talent agencies, casting directors, and industry advisors," the company wrote. "In early 2023, to identify our voice actors, we had the privilege of partnering with independent, well-known, award-winning casting directors and producers. We worked with them to create a set of criteria for ChatGPT's voices, carefully considering the unique personality of each voice and their appeal to global audiences."

We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice—Sky’s voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice," OpenAI added.

However, the company ended up pulling Sky's voice from the program Monday, which also followed in the wake of several resignations from top members of its safety team. Leike, one of those resignees, claimed in a thread on X that the company was prioritizing the production of "shiny" products as opposed to carefully reckoning with the dangers posed by AI.

"Building smarter-than-human machines is an inherently dangerous endeavor," Leike wrote. "But over the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products."