[sillysaurusx]

They said so, and it’s what I would have done. I have no reason not to believe them.

Unfortunately a commenter pointed out that there’s legal precedent for protecting people’s voices from commercial usage specifically (thanks to a court case from four decades ago), so I probably wouldn’t have tried this. The cost of battling it out in the legal system is outweighed by the coolness factor of replicating Her. I personally feel it’s a battle worth winning, since it’s bogus that they have to worry about some annoyed celebrity, and your personal freedoms aren’t being trodden on in this case. But I can see why OpenAI would back down.

Now, if some company was e.g. trying to commercialize everybody’s voices at scale, this would be a different conversation. That should obviously not be allowed. But replicating a culturally significant voice is one of the coolest aspects of AI (have you seen those recreations of historical voices from other languages translated into English? If not, you’re missing out) but that’s not what OpenAI did here.

[pests]

Do you always believe everything a corporation tells you?

If so, I have a bridge you might be interested in buying

[sillysaurusx]

No. But in this particular case, there are two factors that make that irrelevant for me. One, I would have made their same mistake. (If I was Sam, I too would have found it a really cool idea to make GPT have the voice of Her, and I too would not have realized there was one dumb court case from the 80s standing in the way of that.)

Two, it’s bogus that conceptually this isn’t allowed. I’m already anti-IP — I think that IP is a tool that corporations wield to prevent us from using "their" ideas, not to protect us from being exploited as workers. And now this is yet another thing we’re Not Allowed To Do. Great, that sounds like a wonderful world, just peachy. Next time maybe we’ll stop people from monetizing the act of having fun at all, and then the circle of restrictions will be complete.

Or, another way of putting it: poor Scarlett, whatever will she do? Her voice is being actively exploited by a corporation. Oh no.

In reality, she’s rich, powerful, and will be absolutely fine. She’d get over it. The sole reason that she’s being allowed to act like a bully is because the law allows her to (just barely, in this case, but there is one legal precedent) and everyone happens to hate or fear OpenAI, so people love rooting for their downfall and calling Sam an evil sociopath.

Someone, please, make me a moral, ethical argument why what they did here was wrong. I’m happy to change my mind on this. Name one good reason that they shouldn’t be allowed to replicate Her. It would’ve been cool as fuck, and sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who thinks so, other than OpenAI.

[lelandfe]

"This is perfectly legal!"

Actually, there's a similar court case from 1988 that creates legal precedent for her to sue.

"That's just one case! And it's from 1988! That's 36 years ago: rounded up, that's 4 decades!"

Actually, there's a court case from 1992 that built on that judgement and expanded it to define a specific kind of tort.

"That's bad law! Forget the law! I demand a moral justification."

Anyway, asking a person if you can make money off their identity, them saying no, and you going ahead and doing that anyway seems challenging to justify on moral grounds. I don't think you're willing to change your mind, your claim notwithstanding.

[sillysaurusx]

If you approach a debate from a bad faith standpoint, don’t be surprised when the other person doesn’t change their mind. "I think you’re a liar" is a great way to make them nope out.

Which is a shame, since you had a decent argument.

Except it isn’t. Again, you’re acting like OpenAI tried to profit off of Scarlett. They tried to profit off of the portrayal she did in the movie Her. These are not the same thing, and treating them as interchangeable is some next level moral rationalization. One is taking advantage of someone. The other is what the movie industry is for.

Now, where’s this case from 1992 that expended and defined the scope of this?

[qarl]

> Except it isn’t. Again, you’re acting like OpenAI tried to profit off of Scarlett. They tried to profit off of the portrayal she did in the movie Her.

Ahhh... so you admit OpenAI has been shady, but you argue they're actually ripping of Spike Jones not Scarlett Johansson?

HEH. The people who say Sam is shady aren't really interested in this distinction.

(And you're wrong, both ScarJo and the film own aspects of the character they created together.)

[lelandfe]

> Again, you’re acting like OpenAI tried to profit off of Scarlett. They tried to profit off of the portrayal she did in the movie Her.

From her statement:

> I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and Al. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.

So, they wanted to profit off of her voice, as her voice is comforting. She said no, and they did it anyway. Nothing about, "come in and do that song and dance from your old movie."

> where’s this case from 1992

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435928

[CRConrad]

> If you approach a debate from a bad faith standpoint, don’t be surprised when the other person doesn’t change their mind.

Yeah, so stop doing that then.

[CRConrad]

> I have no reason not to believe them.

Seems you mut have reason to want to believe them.

Otherwise you'd have noticed all the reasons not to.