Scarlett Johansson is not happy with OpenAI, and she’s got every right to be as mad as a cat in a bathtub.
Our favorite Black Widow, now a seasoned 39-year-old (but still looking like she just walked off the set of Lost in Translation), threw a serious hissy fit through her publicist, Marcel Pariseau, to NPR on Monday. Apparently, OpenAI decided to channel their inner mad scientist and clone her voice for their new ChatGPT project without so much as a polite “May we, Ms. Johansson?”
Picture this: last September, Scarlett gets an offer from Sam Altman. This guy wants her to lend her sultry voice to ChatGPT 4.0, probably thinking, “Hey, Scarlett’s voice could make reading a phone book sound sexy.” He laid it on thick, telling her she could bridge the gap between tech nerds and creatives, and make this whole robots-taking-over-the-world thing seem like a warm hug.
But Scarlett, after a lot of deep thought (and possibly a few glasses of wine), decided to pass. She had her reasons, and probably some really good Netflix shows to catch up on.
Fast forward nine months, and BAM! Out pops the new ChatGPT, named ‘Sky’, sounding so much like Scarlett that even her dog probably did a double take. Friends, family, the mailman – everyone was like, “Hey, isn’t that Scarlett Johansson?”
When Scarlett herself heard the demo, she was angrier than a bull seeing red. And why wouldn’t she be? Mr. Altman had gone rogue! She even found out he’d been cheeky enough to tweet “her,” a nod to that movie where she voices a chat system that gets all lovey-dovey with a human. Oh, the irony!
To add insult to injury, Altman tried to slide back into her agent’s DMs just two days before the big demo drop, probably hoping she’d have a sudden change of heart. But before Scarlett could even think about picking up the phone, ChatGPT 4.0 was out in the wild, chatting away in her voice.
Scarlett, channeling her inner lawyer, had no choice but to get legal eagles involved. They sent some sternly-worded letters to Altman and his techie gang, demanding to know just how they pulled off their Scarlett-voice heist.
Eventually, OpenAI, probably sweating bullets, agreed to yank the ‘Sky’ voice from their system. And just like that, Scarlett’s vocal doppelgänger was no more.
Lesson learned: never mess with Scarlett Johansson, especially if you plan on using her voice without asking. You might just end up on the business end of a cease-and-desist letter.
