Scarlett Johansson 'shocked' by AI chatbot imitation | BBC News

Now the Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson is taking legal advice after a new version of the AI bot ChatGPT was released with a voice she claims is eerily similar to her own. ChatGPT's owners say the voice is not intended to be an imitation of the star. Our tech reporter Shona McCallum reports. Scarlett Johansson's face is known across the world but it's the Oscar-nominated actress's voice that's under scrutiny. Good morning Theodore. Good morning. You have a meeting in five minutes. You want to try getting out of bed? In the movie Her, she played an AI chatbot which a human fell in love with. Now listen to this. Oh Mark, I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. How about you? A remarkably similar voice called Sky has been used by OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT as they released their assistant last week. Scarlett Johansson revealed she had in fact been offered to be the voice of the new system and offers she declined so she was surprised at the likeness. In a statement to the BBC she said when I heard the release 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. She personally criticised the company's CEO Sam Altman for posting the word Her on social media. She took that as an insinuation that she was the inspiration for the chatbot's sound. Despite denying it was an imitation, the firm said it was pausing it. In a statement Mr Altman said the voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's and was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before any outreach to Miss Johansson. Out of respect for Miss Johansson we have paused using Sky's voice in our products. The actress is the latest celebrity to question how individual rights can remain protected in a world where artificial intelligence and deep fakes are becoming even more of a pressing threat. Shona McCallum, BBC News. Interesting isn't it how AI is developing and the different kind of elements to the story. We do have a special AI programme on my colleague Christian Fraser's show The Context which you can watch every evening from 8pm UK time.