OpenAI to 'Pause' Voice Linked to Scarlett Johansson

OpenAI says its 'Sky' artificial intelligence voice was made in collaboration with a professional actress and is not meant to sound like film star Scarlett Johansson. Noam Galai / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
OpenAI says its 'Sky' artificial intelligence voice was made in collaboration with a professional actress and is not meant to sound like film star Scarlett Johansson. Noam Galai / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
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OpenAI to 'Pause' Voice Linked to Scarlett Johansson

OpenAI says its 'Sky' artificial intelligence voice was made in collaboration with a professional actress and is not meant to sound like film star Scarlett Johansson. Noam Galai / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP
OpenAI says its 'Sky' artificial intelligence voice was made in collaboration with a professional actress and is not meant to sound like film star Scarlett Johansson. Noam Galai / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

Movie star Scarlett Johansson said Monday she was "shocked" by an OpenAI synthetic voice that sounds like her, which was released after she declined to work with the ChatGPT-maker on such a project.
The artificial intelligence powerhouse headed by Sam Altman said it was working on temporarily muting the Johannson-sounding voice it calls "Sky."
"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 couldn't tell the difference," Johannson said in a statement.
Johannson said Altman in September offered to hire her to work with OpenAI to create a synthetic voice, saying it might provide people comfort engaging with AI.
Altman has previously pointed to the Johansson-voiced character in the movie "Her" -- a cautionary tale about the future in which a man falls in love with an AI chatbot -- as inspiration for where he would like AI interactions to go.
Johannson said Altman insinuated the similarity in voices was intentional when at one point he fired off a single-word tweet on X: "Her."
OpenAI said in a blog post that the "Sky" voice at issue was based on the natural speaking voice of a different professional actress and not meant to sound like Johansson.
"We believe that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity's distinctive voice," OpenAI said in the post.
"Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson."
OpenAI is working on a way to "pause" Sky as it addresses what appears to be confusion about who it sounds like, the company said on X.
"We've heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky," OpenAI said.
Johansson said she has asked OpenAI for a detailed accounting of how "Sky" was made.
Risk team disbanded
The company explained that it worked with professional voice actors on synthetic voices it named Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky.

But Sky became the focus of attention last week when OpenAI released a higher-performing and even more humanlike "GPT-4o" version of the artificial intelligence technology that underpins ChatGPT.
In a demo, the new version of Sky was at times even flirtatious and funny, capable of seamlessly jumping from one topic to the next, unlike most existing chatbots.
So far in the AI frenzy, most tech giants have been reluctant to overly humanize chatbots.
Microsoft Vice President Yusuf Mehdi told AFP his company, which has a partnership with OpenAI, sought to make sure that AI was not "a he or a she," but rather a "unique entity."
"It should not be human. It shouldn't breathe. You should be able to...understand (it) is AI," he said.
Just days ago OpenAI said it disbanded a team devoted to mitigating the long-term dangers of artificial intelligence.
OpenAI began dissolving the so-called "superalignment" group weeks ago, integrating members into other projects and research.
Company co-founder Ilya Sutskever and superalignment team co-leader Jan Leike announced their departures from the San Francisco-based firm last week.



Google Holds Illegal Monopolies in Ad Tech, US Judge Finds, Allowing US to Seek Breakup

A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)
A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)
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Google Holds Illegal Monopolies in Ad Tech, US Judge Finds, Allowing US to Seek Breakup

A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)
A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP)

Alphabet's Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.

US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their ad inventory.

Antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of Regulatory Affairs, said Google will appeal the ruling.

"We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half," she said, adding that the company disagrees with the decision on its publisher tools. "Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective."

Google's shares were down around 2.1% at midday.

The decision clears the way for another hearing to determine what Google must do to restore competition in those markets, such as sell off parts of its business at another trial that has yet to be scheduled.

The DOJ has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company's publisher ad server and ad exchange.

Google now faces the possibility of two US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices. A judge in Washington will hold a trial next week on the DOJ's request to make Google sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its dominance in online search.

Google has previously explored selling off its ad exchange to appease European antitrust regulators, Reuters reported in September.

Brinkema oversaw a three-week trial last year on claims brought by the DOJ and a coalition of states.

Google used classic monopoly-building tactics of eliminating competitors through acquisitions, locking customers in to using its products, and controlling how transactions occurred in the online ad market, prosecutors said at trial.

Google argued the case focused on the past, when the company was still working on making its tools able to connect to competitors' products. Prosecutors also ignored competition from technology companies including Amazon.com and Comcast as digital ad spending shifted to apps and streaming video, Google's lawyer said.