AI And The ‘Naughty’ Culture In Tech
I thought we’d left the era of ‘move fast and break things’ but apparently I was wrong
Last month, Sam Altman and OpenAI came under fire when they used a voice for ChatGPT assistant Sky that was “eerily similar” to actress Scarlett Johansson’s.
In the days that followed, more was unveiled: Johansson released a statement saying Altman reached out to engage her to voice ChatGPT 4.0, which she declined.
And then: “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.”
In Johansson’s statement, she expressed that she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” at Altman’s actions. She later hired legal counsel, and OpenAI took down the chatbot. Despite protesting that the voice used was never intended to resemble Johansson’s, Altman had tweeted “her” after the first public demo of Sky, ostensibly referencing that movie of the same name, in which Johansson voiced an AI assistant.
Last year, I experienced an almost-similar situation. (Perhaps even “eerily similar”…
