OpenAI pauses an AI voice that sounds like Scarlett Johansson

OpenAI has recently announced to pause one of the voices which is being used by its AI chatbot called ChatGPT. As per the reports, it was stated by the users, that it sounds similar to Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson.

In a blog post, the Sam Altman-run AI company said that Sky Voice is now being paused after the company used it during the launch of its new GPT-4o model last week.

OpenAI said, “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.”

“To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents,” it added.

Johansson also released a statement, saying OpenAI approached her in September about supplying the voice.

“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson posted on X.

She, however, declined “after much consideration and for personal reasons” and was “shocked” when she heard the released demo.

Altman replied that the voice of Sky is not Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers.

In September 2023, OpenAI introduced voice capabilities to give users another way to interact with ChatGPT.

“Since then, we are encouraged by the way users have responded to the feature and the individual voices. Each of the voices — Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky — are sampled from voice actors we partnered with to create them,” said the company.

OpenAI’s demonstration last week showcased AI’s enhanced conversational abilities.

ALSO READ OpenAI never clawed back any employee's vested equity - CEO Altman

Sam Altman said there was a provision about potential equity cancellation in OpenAI, in the previous exit documents. He also stated that his team had been working to fix the standard exit paperwork over the past few months.

ALSO, Elon Musk recently filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, alleging that they violated their original contractual agreements related to AI. The lawsuit, filed in a San Francisco court, focuses on OpenAI's latest natural language model, GPT-4. 

Inputs from IANS