Scarlett Johansson has suggested that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, could make a fitting Marvel villain, complete with a robotic arm.
The Black Widow star made this lighthearted comment in response to her recent disagreement with Altman and his company, OpenAI, as reported by The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd in a story published on Saturday.
Johansson’s remark came in the context of discussions about her dispute with OpenAI over their GPT-4o model, launched in May, which included various voice options.
The AI’s voice named “Sky” sparked controversy when social media users noted its striking similarity to the AI chatbot Johansson had voiced in Spike Jonze’s 2013 film “Her.”
Scarlett Johansson expressed shock, anger, and disbelief upon hearing the demo of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.0 model, which featured a voice resembling hers.
In a statement released on May 20, she clarified that she had initially declined CEO Sam Altman’s offer to voice the AI back in September.
However, Altman approached her again in May, just two days before the demo’s release on May 13.
“Before we could connect, the system was out there,” Johansson stated, highlighting the suddenness of the situation.
Following the backlash, OpenAI responded with a blog post on May 19, announcing a pause in the release of “Sky,” the voice in question.
Altman emphasized that the voice actor for Sky was cast independently before any contact with Johansson, asserting that it was never intended to resemble her voice.
“We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better,” Altman acknowledged in a statement the next day.
“We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them.”
