ChatGPT's 'Sky' voice to be pulled after Scarlett Johansson called it 'eerily similar' to hers

Scarlett Johansson on Monday accused OpenAI of creating a voice for the ChatGPT chatbot that sounded "eerily similar" to the actress after she declined to voice the chatbot herself.

Johansson made the comments in a statement released hours after the artificial intelligence (AI) company said it was taking down the voice, called 'Sky.'

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Monday that Sky's voice was not an imitation of Johansson but belonged to a different professional actress. The company added that it could not share the name of that professional for privacy reasons.

"The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson," Altman said.

"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."

Johansson 'was shocked' upon hearing the demo

Johansson said Altman had approached her last September and offered to hire her to voice a ChatGPT voice – an offer she declined.

"Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named 'Sky' sounded like me," she said.

"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."

Johansson added that Altman had "insinuated that the similarity was intentional" by tweeting a reference to "Her," the 2013 movie about a man who develops a relationship with an AI assistant voiced by the actress.

She said that she had hired legal counsel to inquire about the process of creating the voice.

New model in controversy

OpenAI said the newest model, dubbed GPT-4o, can reason across text, audio and video in real-time.

GPT-4o, short for "omni," isn't widely available yet.

In a demonstration during OpenAI's May 13 announcement, the AI bot engaged in real time conversation, adding emotion—specifically "more drama"—to its voice as requested.

Many reacting to the model's demos last week also found some of the interactions struck a strangely flirtatious tone.

"This is clearly programmed to feed dudes' egos," The Daily Show senior correspondent Desi Lydic said of GPT-4o in a segment last week. "You can really tell that a man built this tech."

(With input from agencies.)