[HN Gopher] Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI Situ...
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Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI Situation
Author : mjcl
Score : 117 points
Date : 2024-05-20 22:28 UTC (31 minutes ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (x.com)
| alsodumb wrote:
| Why do I feel like Sam's 'her' tweet pretty much gave Scarlett
| Johansson's legal counsel all the ammo they needed lol.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Also, it shows that today's blog post was fiction.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| It probably made things worse, but the fact that they reached
| out to her to use her voice and she explicitly refused would be
| sufficient ammo I feel. (Not a lawyer of course).
|
| Of course, Twitter continues to bring people with big egos to
| their own downfall.
| akr4s1a wrote:
| So was asking her to reconsider 2 days before the demo, how
| blatant can you get
| fareesh wrote:
| am I wrong to think this was the plan all along?
|
| mainstream adoption hasn't been that great - now there's drama
| heyoni wrote:
| You can read that tweet?
| dheera wrote:
| What are the chances that among 7 billion people in the world
| that there are always going to be 100 people that sound like you?
| If Sam Altman was going for a particular voice, there are
| probably 100 people that indistinguishably have that voice and it
| just becomes a question of a headhunt.
| guhidalg wrote:
| One word: "Her"
| robbomacrae wrote:
| That's precisely what they did with Doodle God to imitate
| Morgan Freeman [0] and how James Veich deep faked David
| Attenborough in his PLnaT eRth video [1].
|
| [0]: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/20/how-the-doodle-god-
| un...
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/-CopbQ_QgmM?si=gkbWEva_qqG8dTib&t=205
| karaterobot wrote:
| [delayed]
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Since Microsoft has given up on her, they should hire Jen Taylor
| and do almost-Cortana.
| heyoni wrote:
| Deleted?
| jaykru wrote:
| Try another browser; I wasn't able to open it on Librewolf
| (Firefox fork.)
| heyoni wrote:
| I'm on safari on iPhone though I do use the safari extension
| for adblocking...
| PixelPaul wrote:
| I am really not liking this Sam guy and how he does things. He
| has an attitude of "my way and only my way, and I don't care what
| you think or do"
| oglop wrote:
| That's all successful tech companies out of Silicon Valley.
|
| It is a silly place.
| aeurielesn wrote:
| Him and pretty much the entire SV culture.
| talldayo wrote:
| Relax guys, he's _Open_!
|
| Open for business, Open to suggestions, and Open season for
| any lawyers that want a piece of the sizable damages.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is pretty much quintessential founder behavior. I have had
| my run-ins with people like this, and the relationship is
| usually short lived. I do not drink the kool-aid, and question
| pretty much everything. These types of personalities are like
| oil and water and do not mix. You almost need a third person to
| act as a emulsifier to allow the oil&water to mix without
| separating.
| laborcontract wrote:
| An emulsifier role is a great way to put it. In basketball,
| that's the glue guy.
| aaronharnly wrote:
| Well, this confirms that OpenAI have been shooting from the hip,
| not that we needed much confirmation. The fact that they
| repeatedly tried to hire Johansson, then went ahead and made a
| soundalike while explicitly describing that they were trying to
| make it be like her voice in the movie ... is pretty bad for
| them.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| "Shooting from the hip" is giving them too much credit. Actual
| knowing malice and dishonesty is more like it.
| infotainment wrote:
| It's definitely sketchy (classic OpenAI) But my question is: is
| what they did actually illegal? Can someone copyright their own
| voice?
| automatoney wrote:
| In the United States, likeness rights vary by state
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_rights
| tootie wrote:
| This is so pointless and petty too. Like "hee hee our software
| is just like the movies". And continuing the trend of tech
| moguls watching bleak satire and thinking it's aspirational.
| dilap wrote:
| > 4. Naughtiness
|
| > Though the most successful founders are usually good people,
| they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not
| Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the
| big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's
| why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in
| breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be
| redundant though; it may be implied by imagination.
|
| > Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we
| asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator
| application that would help us discover more people like him. He
| said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their
| advantage--hacked in the sense of beating the system, not
| breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we
| pay most attention to when judging applications.
|
| "What We Look for in Founders", PG
|
| https://paulgraham.com/founders.html
|
| I think the more powerful you become, the less endearing this
| trait is.
| shombaboor wrote:
| it seems most of the big companies try to break the rules while
| in the process become so strong they trade it off for what
| becomes a marginal fine & cost of doing business. Facebook,
| Uber come to mind first. This may just be the same.
| aeurielesn wrote:
| This quote actually makes me disgusted. I don't think this is a
| quality to encourage on, especially since despite the tone it
| reads more as abuse.
| hiatus wrote:
| A big thing when you are being scrappy is finding "unfair
| advantages" and exploiting them. What do you have/see that
| others might not, and how can you best use it to your
| advantage. That doesn't seem disgusting through that lens but
| maybe I am reading you wrong and you can elaborate more on
| what types of abuse you envision.
| laborcontract wrote:
| You are on "Hacker News", surely it's not that much of a
| surprise?
| themagician wrote:
| Sure, a bit of rebellion can fuel innovation in founders, but
| as they gain power, it's important to keep things ethical. What
| seems charming at the startup phase might raise eyebrows as the
| company expands.
| mxstbr wrote:
| There is no source; black text on a white background. How do we
| know this is real?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| It was posted by the tech reporter at NPR. Inb4 "journos can't
| be trusted" blah blah blah, here in reality NPR is a reputable
| org and a reasonable person's Bayesian priors would put this at
| "almost certainly an actual statement from ScarJo."
| shombaboor wrote:
| This reporter appears to have confirmed it from a direct source
| https://x.com/yashar/status/1792682664845254683?t=EwNPiMPwRe...
| Animats wrote:
| _Variety_ has a story.[1] It doesn 't yet mention an direct
| statement from Johannson. But watch that space. _Variety_ is
| well connected in Hollywood and will check with her agent to
| confirm or deny.
|
| [1] https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/openai-pulls-
| scarlett-...
| timdorr wrote:
| Scarlett Johansson doesn't have social media accounts:
| https://nypost.com/2023/04/04/why-scarlett-johansson-is-not-...
|
| Stuff from her comes via press agents, which is generally sent
| directly to reporters.
| notamy wrote:
| http://archive.ph/cr759
|
| https://nitter.poast.org/BobbyAllyn/status/17926794357010149...
| endisneigh wrote:
| Sadly not much will come of this. Even if they're fined, so what?
| MrSkelter wrote:
| You have no idea. Th will settle or be forced to admit they
| used a movie studios IP without payment to clone a voice model.
| They will cut a check for tens of millions and maybe stock as
| well. They will run from this as is clearly obvious from the
| immediate takedown. They are in crisis mode.
| Imnimo wrote:
| Many of OpenAI's productization ideas make more sense when you
| remember that the guy in charge also thought Worldcoin and it's
| eye scanning or were a good idea.
| ozten wrote:
| Nooo. I've been enjoying that voice for a few months on my iPhone
| ChatGPT app. Launched... and tested... the voice is someone else
| now.
| keepamovin wrote:
| I think it's interesting that Johansson chose to forgo
| substantial royalties and collaboration potential
|
| But it must feel pretty fucking weird and violatory when you
| spend your entire life thinking about how you are going to
| deliver certain lines and that's your creative Body of work, and
| then for someone to just take that Voice and apply it to any
| random text that can be generated?
|
| I get why she wouldn't want to let it go.
|
| In a way it is similar to how a developer might feel about their
| code being absorbed, generalized, and then regurgitated almost
| verbatim as part of some AI responses
|
| But in the case of voice it's even worse as the personality
| impression is contained in the slightest utterance... whereas a
| style of coding Or a piece of code might be less Recognizable,
| and generally applicable to such a wide range of productions
|
| Voice is the original human technology, To try to take that from
| someone without their consent is a pretty all encompassing grab
| steveBK123 wrote:
| She choose to forego being a billion lonely guys AI girlfriend
|
| Not a bad call for someone already rich
| keepamovin wrote:
| To suggest that Johansson's only appeal is to the opposite
| gender (and 'lonely' ones at that!) I think is myopic and
| reductive of her impact
| logrot wrote:
| I think you're pretty naive.
| UberFly wrote:
| OpenAI has successfully stolen the intellectual property of
| millions of people to incorporate into their product, so why
| would they fear stealing someones voice at this point? I hope she
| wins. Maybe it'll set some kind of precedent.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Incredibly stupid
|
| The wink wink at creating an AI girlfriend is so bizarre
|
| I guess we know who their target user base is
| talldayo wrote:
| Worse than that, good luck positioning yourself as a paragon of
| "AI safety" when you can't even handle basic human business
| relationships honestly.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| This reads like a PR stunt. Why did they clone the voice from
| Her?
| dangoodmanUT wrote:
| Alright who left the dwight schrute cloner on overnight in the
| comments
| blibble wrote:
| consent appears to be optional for everything OpenAI does
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Non-X sources:
| https://news.google.com/stories/CAAqNggKIjBDQklTSGpvSmMzUnZj...
| akr4s1a wrote:
| I can't fathom such a bad decision as asking someone for
| permission to use their voice and doing it anyway after they say
| no. It's almost like NYT is currently suing them for unauthorized
| use and they should really not be making such an amateur mistake.
| MBCook wrote:
| I really hope she sues the company to hell and back.
|
| She has the resources to fight back and make an example of them,
| and they have the resources to make it worthwhile.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| This is hilarious. OpenAI didn't even need to press for this
| voice, their technical demo was impressive enough, but they did
| and now it'll cast a shadow over a pretty impressive AI
| advancement. In the long term though, this won't matter.
| anon373839 wrote:
| Well, that statement lays out a damning timeline:
|
| - OpenAI approached Scarlett last fall, and she refused.
|
| - Two days before the GPT-4o launch, they contacted her agent and
| asked that she reconsider. (Two days! This means they already had
| everything they needed to ship the product with Scarlett's cloned
| voice.)
|
| - Not receiving a response, OpenAI demos the product anyway, with
| Sam tweeting "her" in reference to Scarlett's film.
|
| - When Scarlett's counsel asked for an explanation of how the
| "Sky" voice was created, OpenAI yanked the voice from their
| product line.
|
| Perhaps Sam's next tweet should read "red-handed".
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(page generated 2024-05-20 23:00 UTC)