Have you seen the 2013 dystopian movie Her staring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johannsson? You’ll see plenty of Phoenix and hear a lot of Johansson, and that’s because the actress played the voice of a highly advanced AI. Today, sci-fi is fighting to become a reality, as it’s recently been reported that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, asked Johansson last year if she would feature her own voice for the ChatGPT 4.0 system. Altman said her voice could be “comforting” to people. She declined at the time, and so was naturally surprised to find that the new program, which was just released, sounded eerily similar to her own voice.

It also didn’t help that directly before ChatGPT 4.0 released, Altman presented the following post to the world on X:

Altman was clearly referring to the film starring Johansson. The actress immediately pursued legal action and demanded Altman disclose how he had developed “Sky,” the voice for the new ChatGPT demo. Here is a quote from an NBC report on the incident:

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference,” Johansson wrote in the statement. Altman’s announcement of the new product was posted on X on the same day of the product demonstration and is still live. Her statement continued, “Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her’ – a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.”

Scarlett Johansson was ‘shocked, angered’ by ChatGPT voice that sounded like her (nbcnews.com)

Altman responded in a statement that Sky was not intended to imitate Johansson’s voice, despite the likeness and his fairly indicative post on X, and withdrew the voice from the demo. Several people chided Altman in the comments of his X post, reminding him that Her was intended as a cautionary tale against using AI in place of human relationships. The tragedy of the film is that the AI is the “girlfriend” to hundreds of people, not just for Theodore, Phoenix’s character. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s provocative, and worth the watch.

The Sky debacle arrives in lieu of a spate of resignations from OpenAI, including the departure of the company’s co-founder, Ilya Sutskever. Several other high-profile employees of OpenAI have also resigned. For a comprehensive list, click here. It’s unclear why these people are resigning, or whether there is a common reason. Given, however, how the board of OpenAI voted to oust Altman from his post last November (although he swiftly regained power), it does make one wonder what’s going on behind the scenes, or if Altman’s leadership is causing some dissatisfaction or unease among members of the company.

OpenAI hasn’t necessarily been a friend to artists, writers, and actors, and now its CEO has ruffled the feathers of one of the planet’s most esteemed and accomplished Hollywood figures. Not pulling any punches, psychology professor and commentator Geoffrey Miller wrote in response to the Sky voice,

Over the last couple of years, the AI industry has infuriated ordinary creators of art, music, and writing. They’ve infuriated most of the experts on AI safety. Now they’re infuriating one of the wealthiest, most powerful, & most influential Hollywood stars.

If they’re not careful, OpenAI could keep opening worm cans. Should Sam Altman resign? Is it time for the AI company to take a hard look at its practices and overreach, not to mention its apparent disregard for human creativity and copyright law?