Comment by DoctorOetker

2 years ago

Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers?

Imagine being a potential future employer of the lesser known artist, would you dare hire her in the face that Johansson's lawyers might come after you?

Is this lesser known voice artist now doomed to find a job in a different sector?

Voice archetypes are much much older than Johansson, so by symmetry arguments, could those earlier in line sue Johansson in turn?

When a strong person is offered a job at the docks, but refuses, and if then later another strong person accepts the job, can the first one sue the employer for "finding another strong man"?

At some point the courts are being asked to uphold exceptionalist treatment and effectuate it on tax-payers dollars moving executive branches in case of non-compliance.

> Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers?

Right, it would be one thing if there was evidence that OpenAI asked the actress to imitate Johansson. But people are saying that using this voice actress at all without Johansson's permission shouldn't be legal, which is a bizarre claim. If someone thinks my voice sounds similar to a celebrities, now that celebrity owns my voice? In any other situation, everyone here would think such a standard would be completely outrageous.

(For what it's worth, I didn't find the Sky voice to sound anything like Scarlett Johannson personally)

  • Exactly, everyone claiming so hasn't actually listened to it [1], or they're basing their opinion off of "suspicious correlations", like that Altman mentioned "her" just before releasing a voice-interactive AI assistant.

    [1] https://x.com/chriswiles87/status/1792909936189378653

  • I would bet these charitable readings of OA intentions are going to get wiped away by some internal emails found during discovery. It does sound like Mr. Altman was talking about it publicly in a tweet, it’s probable there are internal comms about this.

> Also looking from the perspective of the lesser known voice actress, does Scarlett Johansson have the right to trample the lesser known voice artists future job opportunities by intimidating her previous employers?

This is weird, if not bizarre. Scarlett didn't do anything. Literally no action besides saying no. Then a company decides to impersonate her and use her performance in a movie as implicit marketing for a product. That's the company's problem, not hers.

This is exactly the right argument. Accepting the lawsuit would give precedent to an insidious combination: Matthew+chilling effect

> Is this lesser known voice artist now doomed to find a job in a different sector?

The lesser-known voice actor is dooming themselves to find a job in a different sector by contributing to the development of technology that will almost certainly replace all voice actors.