Comment by jacobolus
13 hours ago
What was the "truth" in the Johansson case? Many, many people who heard the voice immediately thought it was Johansson's voice, or some kind of sound-alike, presumably picked because she voiced the computer in a popular film. From NPR:
> Johansson said that nine months ago [i.e. mid 2023] Altman approached her proposing that she allow her voice to be licensed for the new ChatGPT voice assistant. He thought it would be "comforting to people" who are uneasy with AI technology.
> "After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer," Johansson wrote.
> Just two days before the new ChatGPT was unveiled, Altman again reached out to Johansson's team, urging the actress to reconsider, she said.
> But before she and Altman could connect, the company publicly announced its new, splashy product, complete with a voice that she says appears to have copied her likeness.
> To Johansson, it was a personal affront.
> "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 said.
It was an unfortunate misunderstanding / coincidence, as I understand it. The Sky voice actor was a real person using her own voice (not doing an impression), and she was selected via a normal process with a number of other voice actors. This happened before Sam reached out to Johansson. I totally get how Johansson would be weirded out to hear a voice similar to hers after Sam reached out and she said no, but it was purely a coincidence.
We published more details here: https://openai.com/index/how-the-voices-for-chatgpt-were-cho...
Why would outsiders take this at face value considering Altman's reputation as a pathological liar?
Cf. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may...
> The memos, which we reviewed, have not previously been disclosed in full. They allege that Altman misrepresented facts to executives and board members, and deceived them about internal safety protocols. One of the memos, about Altman, begins with a list headed “Sam exhibits a consistent pattern of . . .” The first item is “Lying.”
> Graham told Y.C. colleagues that, prior to his removal, “Sam had been lying to us all the time.”
> “He’s unconstrained by truth,” the board member told us. “He has two traits that are almost never seen in the same person. The first is a strong desire to please people, to be liked in any given interaction. The second is almost a sociopathic lack of concern for the consequences that may come from deceiving someone.”
> Not long before his death, [Aaron] Swartz expressed concerns about Altman to several friends. “You need to understand that Sam can never be trusted,” he told one. “He is a sociopath. He would do anything.”
> “He has misrepresented, distorted, renegotiated, reneged on agreements,” one [Microsoft senior executive] said.
Many people who worked on voice mode and who worked on the Frontier Math eval have since left OpenAI and now work at competitors of OpenAI (e.g., Anthropic, Meta, Thinking Machines). They'd have every incentive to whistleblow if OpenAI had lied about them. And yet... not one of them ever has.
Edit: I think I'll stop engaging here. I'm happy to share insight into OpenAI and address misperceptions if it's interesting to people, but I'm not really sure how to respond to accusations that we lie about everything. Nothing I can say can satisfy those accusations, as my posts could also be part of the conspiracies. Cheers.
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