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Even if they hired an actress with a similar voice to train the AI to sound similar to Johansonn, celebrity impersonators have been doing that for (I’d guess) longer than recorded voice media has even existed. I’m having a hard time seeing why one is fine but the other isn’t.
Edit: corrected bad spelling of her name.
I’m having a hard time seeing why one is fine but the other isn’t.
I think the law says that neither is fine, in the context here. The law allows celebrity impersonators to engage in parody and commentary, but not to actually use their impersonation skills to endorse products, engage in fraud, and pretend to be that person being impersonated.
But this is just using a voice. It might even be their natural voice. I don’t think there’s fraud because it wasn’t presented as Scarlett’s voice. If it wasn’t presented as not her voice, then maybe those other two would apply, though is allowing a service to use your voice the same as endorsement? Is it enough to sound like someone to be considered impersonating them?
This situation lands in a grey area where I can’t endorse or condemn it. I mean, it would have been smarter to just use a different voice. Find a celebrity that would sign on or just use an unrecognisable voice. Ethical or not, and legal or not, it was stupid.
It was explicitly represented as her voice when he tweeted “Her” in relation to the product, referencing a movie which she voiced. It’s not a legal grey area in the US. He sank his own ship here.
I’m mostly going off of this article and a few others I’ve read. This article notes:
Celebrities have previously won cases over similar-sounding voices in commercials. In 1988, Bette Midler sued Ford for hiring one of her backup singers for an ad and instructing the singer to “sound as much as possible like the Bette Midler record.” Midler had refused to be in the commercial. That same year, Tom Waits sued Frito-Lay for voice misappropriation after the company’s ad agency got someone to imitate Waits for a parody of his song in a Doritos commercial. Both cases, filed in California courts, were decided in the celebrities’ favor. The wins by Midler and Waits “have clear implications for AI voice clones,” says Christian Mammen, a partner at Womble Bond Dickinson who specializes in intellectual property law.
There’s some more in there:
To win in these cases, celebrities generally have to prove that their voice or other identifying features are unregistered trademarks and that, by imitating them, consumers could connect them to the product being sold, even if they’re not involved. That means identifying what is “distinctive” about her voice — something that may be easier for a celebrity who played an AI assistant in an Oscar-winning movie.
I think taken with the fact that the CEO made a direct reference to the movie she voiced an AI assistant when announcing the product, that’s enough that a normal person would “connect them to the product being sold.”
I read that Scarlett’s family & friends couldn’t tell it apart from her actual voice.
I’d say that “Open AI” or whatever they’re called, trained it specifically on only her voice.
The seems-narcissistic-machiavellian-sociopath-CEO whats-his-face tried to get her to agree to this,
she wouldn’t agree,
he tweeted “her” when releasing the update ( after Scarlett’s movie )
she lawyered up,
he backed down…
I’d say it’s a clear case of identity-theft-for-profit of a celebrity, by a consistently narcissistic-machiavellian-sociopath who’s kinda leaving lots of corpses of “integrity” all over the place.
There’s some law which protects celebrities from use of their likeness, and rightly:
it’s their “coin” that their career is made-of, right?
_ /\ _
frankly I’m amazed they tried to pull this shit when it was so obvious and Johannson obviously wasn’t on board.
if they didn’t need to license it, why did they repeatedly try?
Legally maybe its fine, I’m not sure. But because they tried to license or get permission and involvement officially from her, but she declined, then they asked again , she declined again and two days later they released it with (possibly) her voice anyway. At best it displays them to be bad faith plundering abusers including of individuals’ likenesses. We in this type of forum are not surprised of course - its par for the course with these tech bros who’ve made a business out of other peoples content largely without consent. Respect to Johansonn for making this known publicly though. But even weirder that they then took it down when they saw the reaction. Highlighting themselves as Sociopaths. Plenty of those around, but with this much power and access to data? Creepy.
Yeah, it is kinda sketchy, though they might have backed down because they realized there was no winning this in the court of public opinion, regardless of whether they were trying to act in good faith prior to the controversy coming out.
IMO Johansonn making it public was an obvious strategic move because it gave her a strong position because of how unpopular AI is these days. She might have otherwise just paid some lawyers a lot of money to accomplish nothing if it was legally fine and she was adamant about them not using a voice that sounded like hers (guessing the best she would have gotten without going public is them paying her some money to continue using that similar voice or maybe a bit more money to use her actual voice, either way they would have gotten what they wanted).
Yeh she effectively chose an ethical position with no downside I can think of. Unless they made her sign an NDA / MOU which they clearly didn’t. Their sketchiness is enhanced if anything. Makes me wonder if they made some low level threat at that last minute approach. e.g we are using your voice anyway, now’s your chance to get onboard the gravy train or look bad. Just speculation of course. She wasnt aware apparently. Also the fact they want to mimic the “her” ai is just weird. They are worse than the cautionary fiction.
IMO it sounded fake, not fake like artificial or not being real, but more like not being honest or genuine. Like a bit too much or over-attached girlfriend.
Don’t get me wrong, it was very impressive, but IMO they should tone down the fake enthusiasm.GPT is just trying to get a good tip.
Don’t stick your dick in that
I hate to defend Sam but Scarlet does not have a patent on a bubbly mid western accent.
He tweeted “Her”, which explicitly tells us it’s a deliberate imitation of Scarlett’s voice in that movie. And he tried to negotiate licencing her famous voice, which she rejected.
So it’s more than just a coincidence, it’s deliberate bad faith behaviour. Legally you can’t misrepresent a product as being from a famous person when it wasn’t, and he very much did that. I guess he was hoping she’d give in and accept the licensing agreement post-facto. But instead it looks he’s in legal deep water now.
That’s not proof of anything. It’s the most well known reference to a “AI Girlfriend” in popular culture that there currently is.
This reminds me of when the Fine Brothers tried to trademark the word “react” or when Paris Hilton did the same thing for “That’s hot”.
Celebrities get wide latitude to protect themselves from imitators. Impressionists can do “satire” etc. but this isn’t that. It’s explicitly a reference to her voice in the movie, and as such she’s protected by law from them going around her and hiring someone else to imitate her.
Well maybe Scarlet needs to start pay royalties to millions of Midwestern women. Because she didn’t come up with that way of talking on her own now did she?
This argument is so stupid it’s even remarkably stupider than the surrounding comments in a lemmy thread full of braindead bot humpers.
Congrats! 🎈
Alternate theory, they heard what they came up with, tried to liscence the use of her voice to avoid a legal fight, hoped she might come around after the fact and now here we are.
Seems possible anyway.
Do we know Sam had any specific and previous interest in Scarlet?
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I’ve listened to it, and it sounds nothing like Scarlett does. I had to find a movie with Scarlett in it to compare with, and I can honestly tell you ChatGPT sounds nothing like Natasha in Black Widow.
(Joke aside, ChatGPT doesn’t sound like Scarlett at all).
She has a very generic sounding American sultry woman voice, imo. Seems like a money grab to me. She’s not dumb, she sued Disney for some nonsense, and now she’s starting shit with the soon to be biggest company in the world.
She’s just latching onto the fact that any time women complain about shit like this, and use words like sexism, gaslighting, misogyny, etc, it gets a lot of traction in the media.
What a horrible woman.
You could like… read about it before you talk?
I did. And unlike you, I can draw my own conclusions, rather than let the media dictate them for me.
Maybe try thinking a bit, before simping for these celebs. She’s just taking the opportunity to get some money, that’s all. She’s purposely throwing these words around because she knows you white knights will freak out about it and jump on her side. It’s scary how easy it is to manipulate you guys.
Well, I’m not gonna waste my time explaining to you. It’s not my job, and I just don’t want to. If you wanna simp for her, go ahead.
Mhmm… that’s why OpenAI asked her for permission to use her voice a while back? That’s why Altman joked about the new voice sounding like hers?
Yeah I said I’m not gonna waste my time educating you, so if you refuse to see it, then so be it.
Not sure if you’re fishing for downvotes or trolling lol
Just telling the truth. People have a hard time seeing past this wokeness.
Wokeness? Lol
