Frankly Scarlett, OpenAI doesn't give a damn

In partnership with

It's clear that OpenAI wants you to fall in love with its latest and greatest creation, and it will do almost anything to make that happen – including borrowing the voice of a famous actress. 

ChatGPT-4o is a saucy little minx who responds in a flirtatious way that makes weak men faint, strong men cry out, and rich men offer her a monthly allowance and the keys to their pied-à-terre. 

Here's "Sky" in part of the OpenAI demo released a week ago, getting coy and girlish with a couple of AI nerds.

It did not escape many peoples' notice that one of GPT-4o's simulated voices (named "Sky") sounds an awful lot like Scarlett Johannson's character Samantha in the movie Her. The movie is about a lonely nebbish (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with the voice of his operating system. [1]

And here's what Sam Altman tweeted while the ChatGPT-4o demo was underway.

The Black Widow's revenge 

One of the people whose attention got piqued was The Black Widow herself. Yesterday, Johannson revealed that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman approached her last September to see if she'd be willing to provide the voice for his sexy new AI. She declined. 

Two days before the big reveal, he tried again. Before she could turn him down a second time, the product had been unveiled and Sky/Samantha was released into the world. 

In a statement, the actress wrote: 

"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.... I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they'd done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they'd created the 'Sky' voice...."

When you're part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you have superpowers that extend beyond the boundaries of the screen. Before she could sic The Hulk on Altman, OpenAI backed down and removed the Sky voice from the product. 

OpenAI then claimed it was all just a terrible misunderstanding. In an unsigned blog post, the company detailed the process by which it chose the five voices that make up the personality of GPT-4o. Here's a quote:

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.

Altman also released a statement to NPR, which really didn't help his case much:  

"We cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky's voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn't communicate better."

So, after already having cast an unknown (aka inexpensive) actress for the voice of Sky, Altman thought 'Gee she sounds a lot like that hot chick from Her, maybe we should pay ScarJo millions of dollars to do this voice instead'? 

Sure, I totally believe that. 

(The following message is brought to you by our sponsors.)

85% of all AI Projects Fail, but AE Studio Delivers

If you have a big idea and think AI should be part of it, meet AE.

We’re a development, data science and design studio working with founders and execs on custom software solutions. We turn AI/ML ideas into realities–from chatbots to NLP and more.

Tell us about your visionary concept or work challenge and we’ll make it real. The secret to our success is treating your project as if it were our own startup.

Talk to Us Now

When 'o' rhymes with 'bro'

Is this a stupid way to run an $87 billion company? Yes. Is it surprising? Not really. Remember that ChatGPT got so smart in the first place by 'borrowing' billions of bits of published and often copyrighted material. [3]

It's not just Altman or OpenAI. He's just part of the "normal rules don't apply to us" culture that's been running roughshod over the tech world for the last two decades. 

Advertise your cars as fully self driving when they are anything but? So what if 'autopilot mode' led to more than 700 accidents and 44 deaths?

Turn a leading bitcoin exchange into your own personal piggy bank, wiping out $8 billion in investor assets overnight? Rock on, my dude. 

Raise billions by claiming to have invented a revolutionary way to perform blood tests that turned out to be complete bullshit? Maybe one day they'll make a Netflix miniseries about you. 

Buy a social media firm that tens of millions of people rely on for breaking news and turn it into a cesspool of conspiracy kooks, incels, and Nazi cosplayers? Wait, aren't you the same guy who killed all those drivers?

Yes, some of these people went too far, and now they're not going anywhere for a while. [4] But they're the rare exceptions. "Move fast and break things" is the mantra by which modern tech companies people live. But it's almost always someone else's things that end up getting broken. 

Safety last

The Scarlett Johannson stuff is fun to write about, but it's far from the most unsettling news coming out of OpenAI. The company disbanded its AI safety team last week after its two leaders, both part of the original group that founded the organization, resigned. 

They left because “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products” at the company.  

Remember: When OpenAI was formed as a nonprofit organization back in 2015, its entire mission was AI safety. Now that the last remaining stub of that is gone, Altman & Co. are free to make as many shiny AI girlfriends as they like. 

I think The Daily Show's Desi Lydic captured it best.

Do tech bros really know what's best for the rest of us? Share your thoughts in the comments below or email me: [email protected].

[1] Once again, for the record, I hated that movie. 

[2] Don't ask what Altman was doing with his other hand.

[3] OpenAI is being sued up the wazoo for copyright infringement, suits that it will ultimately settle for a few million here and a few million there – a mouse-sized tax on elephant-sized profits.

[4] FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried is serving 25 years hard time for fraud; Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes is doing a nine-year stretch at a Club Fed in Texas. As for the others, well, a person can dream.