Is it really ScarJo, and why does it matter?

If you're both a fan of Hollywood and tech, the tail end of May must have been eventful for you. A-list movie star Scarlett Johansson took legal action against tech company OpenAI for using her voice without permission, for promotion of their product. Just to elaborate, in case there's even the remotest chance that you don't know who or what OpenAI is, it's the company that is responsible for generative technology such as ChatGPT, Dall-E and Sora.

What happened was that OpenAI included Voice Mode to ChatGPT, where the user can choose a voice out of a few presented options, to engage with ChatGPT.

Voice Mode.

The sticking point was that one of the voices, named "Sky", sounded an awful lot like Scarlett Johansson herself. In the days that followed, ScarJo revealed that OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, had approached her twice for permission to use her voice for that purpose, and she had declined to give it. It sounded like OpenAI had gone ahead anyway, disregarding her objections, when they launched the new feature. Johanssen, herself no stranger to suing corporations when necessary, did not hesitate to call out Open AI.

Was it ScarJo, though?

Apparently not! OpenAI apologized to Johansson for the confusion and clarified that the voice wasn't hers, but belonged to a voice actor whom they hired for the job. She simply sounded an awful lot like Johansson, and had her mannerisms.

Nevertheless, OpenAI took down the voice "out of respect" but the bonfire that was the controversy continues to rage on. Though it begs the question: if OpenAI are completely innocent of the charge, why is there a need to do that?

A.I generated
image of ScarJo.

I can't verify if the voice is indeed Scarlett Johansson's, or simply sounds similar. I couldn't pick Johansson voice out of a lineup for the simple reason that I'm not great with voices. Also (heh heh) I spend significantly more time looking at rather than listening to her.

But perhaps that's not the important point in this entire thing. If A.I can legally replicate any celebrity's likeness for the purpose of promoting any product, service or agenda regardless of that celebrity's intentions, that entails a couple of implications.

The first, and arguably less important, is financial. Now, I'm not concerned with ScarJo specifically. She'll be fine; this woman makes more money in a month than most of us do in a year. However, just being able to ride on the back of someone else's popularity to promote whatever you want without needing to pay that person a cent, strikes me as fundamentally and ethically wrong.

The more alarming implication

The second implication, is, of course, having someone else use your image to sell something you don't endorse. In an age where deepfakes and misinformation abounds, this is a huge, glaring red flag.

Beware!

Take the case of one Gina Carano. Back in 2021, she found herself being cancelled due to some remarks she made on Social Media. Whether one agrees with her or not, the fact remains is that she aired those views. She stood behind them, and suffered the consequences. There is no debate about that.

But what if she didn't espouse those views? What if she only appeared to do so because someone made an A.I deepfake of her spouting those views? Now we're wandering into some truly sinister territory.

Sam Altman himself posted a Tweet on X, leading up to the release of the new feature, referencing the movie Her, which, quite ironically, starred Scarlett Johansson herself as an A.I generated voice, thus implying that the voice of Sky in ChatGPT's Voice Mode was really ScarJo. Now, he could have been completely innocent of the charge of stealing ScarJo's voice for OpenAI. The voice could really have, as claimed, come from a completely unrelated voice actress. With that stunt from him, it no longer matters. The existing fears that people have towards generative A.I could only have been amplified after this debacle, regardless of the legal outcome.

Seriously, between Sam Altman and Elon Musk, what is it with tech company CEOs doing stupid shit and acting like consequences are for lesser mortals?

Also, if anyone feels like arguing that it's not too far-fetched for Scarlett Johansson to endorse OpenAI, do remember that this woman is in the business of filmmaking, an industry that OpenAI's Sora may well one day disrupt. Call it a failure of imagination on my part, but I can't see her (or any other actor) championing that.

In the Final Analysis

It doesn't matter one iota if Sky was really ScarJo. Perception is everything, especially in a world where A.I is generating content.

Whether or not OpenAI survives this legal battle; indeed, whether this even results in a legal battle at all, its public image has taken a serious battering.

Looks like Sky is the limit!
T___T