Scarlett Johansson recently accused Open AI of copying the voice after refusing permission to use it for voice assistants. 

This occurs immediately after OpenAI drops his voice due to similarity. But until now I did not know that Johansson himself was involved.

Johansson's legal team provided a statement to NPR from the actor and asked the company to disclose how it developed the voice of an AI personal assistant, much like the actor, about 2 letters sent to OpenAI. Johansson said in a statement: "On May 9 last year I received an offer from Sam Altman who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT4.0 system. He told me that he felt that by making my system sound, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers feel comfortable with the seismic changes around humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.

Johansson "rejected the offer for personal reasons after much consideration."But when OpenAI demoed its latest large language model, GPT-4o, last week, Johansson was informed by a lot of people that "Sky" sounded like her. 

Johansen continued to watch the video and said she was "shocked", angry and did not believe Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to the heart that my close friends and the press could not discern the difference.She also said that Altman reached out to her to ask her to reconsider a few days before the demonstration, but released the video before she responded. 

An OpenAI spokesperson said that "The voice of the sky was not Scarlett Johansson's and was not intended to resemble her." The statement continued. "We cast the voice actor behind Skye's voice before our outreach to Ms. Johansson. In honor of Ms. Johansson, we paused by using Sky's voice in our product. We are sorry to Johansson that we did not communicate better.

OpenAI also released a lengthy article on Monday detailing how the company selects voices for AI assistants. The post explains how the actor does it, stating that "Skye's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson, but belongs to another professional actress using her own natural speaking voice." To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talent.

However, this release came only after Johansson's Law Council sent a letter asking for an explanation. "I believe that in an age when we are all working on deep fakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work and our own identity, these are questions that deserve absolute clarity," Johansson wrote. "I look forward to a resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to ensure that individual rights are protected."

With the rise of AI-generated voice, assistants have been able to sound more real and connect more with users. However, this situation reveals one of the big concerns about how easy it is to reproduce the voice.1 This, in addition to other concerns about making AI-generated voices sound very real, can be used to trick people into thinking they are talking to a loved one. 

Continue this story to see if OpenAI and Johansson reach an agreement. Whatever happens, it could provide an important precedent for how AI will be allowed to act soundly in the future.