Comment by qarl

2 years ago

> You are dead right that the order of operations recently uncovered precludes misappropriation.

I don't think that follows. It's entirely possible that OpenAI wanted to get ScarJo, but believed that simply wasn't possible so went with a second choice. Later they decided they might as well try anyway.

This scenario does not seem implausible in the least.

Remember, Sam Altman has stated that "Her" is his favorite movie. It's inconceivable that he never considered marketing his very similar product using the film's IP.

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qarl

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throwthrowuknow  2 years ago

There are 4 other voices including male and androgynous ones. It wasn’t a second choice. Those voices have been available since 2023.

  • qarl  2 years ago

    That's irrelevant. According to Midler v. Ford:

    "We hold only that when a distinctive voice of a professional singer is widely known and is deliberately imitated in order to sell a product, the sellers have appropriated what is not theirs and have committed a tort in California."

    Ford having multiple ads would not have changed the determination.

    • throwthrowuknow  2 years ago

      The voice doesn’t sound like her and the article shows there’s a fair amount of proof to back up the claim that it wasn’t meant to and that there was no attempt to imitate her.

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tangentstar  2 years ago

I interpret it completely differently given that the voice actor does not sound like SJ.

1. OpenAI wants to make a voice assistant. 2. They hire the voice actor. 3. Someone at OpenAI wonders why they would make a voice assistant that doesn’t sound like the boss’s favorite movie. 4. They reach out to SJ who tells them to pound sand.

Accordingly, there is no misappropriation because there is no use.

  • qarl  2 years ago

    I understand that the voice actor does not sound like ScarJo to you.

    But you need to understand that it does sound like ScarJo to a lot of people. Maybe 50% of the people who hear it.

    Those kinds of coincidences are the things that make you lose in court.

    • throwthrowuknow  2 years ago

      The voice is different enough that anyone who listens to samples longer than 5 seconds side by side and says they can’t tell them apart is obviously lying.

      All the reporting around this I’ve seen uses incredibly short clips. There are hours of recorded audio of SJ speaking and there are lots of examples of the Sky voice out there since it’s been around since September.

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