OpenAI and the Controversy Over Scarlett Johansson’s Voice
This week, OpenAI introduced several new voice models to GPT-4o: Aiden, Ember, Zephyr, Orion, and Sky. However, the Sky voice model sparked controversy after actress Scarlett Johansson revealed that she was approached to license her voice for the new model but declined for “personal reasons.”
Johansson further reported that two days before the GPT-4o demonstration, Altman contacted her again, asking her to reconsider the proposal.
Before the actress could respond, the new feature was announced, followed by a post from Sam Altman on his X account (formerly Twitter) with the word “her.”
Understanding the Reference
In 2013, Scarlett Johansson voiced a bot in the movie “Her,” where a man falls in love with the generative model. Clearly, the Altman’s post was an allusion to the film and the actress’s voice, who had denied permission to use her voice.
