Scarlett Johansson says OpenAI used her voice's likeness without permission

Scarlett Johansson says she was forced to hire legal counsel after OpenAI, the organization behind ChatGPT, used her voice’s likeness without her consent.

In a statement obtained by NBC News, the actor aired her grievances with the research-based company after similarities between her voice and one of its new AI voice systems were brought to her attention. According to the actor’s statement, she has taken legal action against the group whose CEO she claims approached on two separate occasions to hire her to be the voice of the platform’s newly released ChatGPT 4.0 system.

Johansson claimed that the CEO, Sam Altman, first spoke with her about using her voice in September 2023.

“After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer,” Johansson explained. “Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me.”

The actor noted that upon hearing the demo, she felt shocked, angry and “disbelief” that 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 pointed out a social media post shared by Altman on May 13, which she claimed referenced the 2013 science-fiction film “Her.” In the Academy Award-winning film by Spike Jonze, Johansson lent her voice to a fictionalized AI chat system.

“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,” she continued.

Johansson underlined that two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Altman followed up with her agent about his interest in hiring her and asked her “to reconsider.”

“Before we could connect, the system was out there,” she added.

Johansson says she was "forced to hire legal counsel" and her teams wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, asking for the "exact process by which they created the ‘Sky’ voice,” her statement continued, noting that OpenAI eventually agreed to take down the “Sky” voice albeit with hesitancy.

“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” she explained. “I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”

In a statement to NBC News, Altman said the similarities between Johansson’s and OpenAI's Sky were unintentional.

“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers,” he said in a statement late Monday, May 20. “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.”

In the summer of 2023, SAG-AFTRA — of which Johansson is a member — kicked off a nearly five month strike in which concern over artificial intelligence and fair compensation became a driving force.

“We think it is absolutely vital that this negotiation protects not just our likenesses, but makes sure we are well compensated when any of our work is used to train AI,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher wrote in an open letter at the time.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com