Over time, many great minds have spoken up about AI's capacity to upend - and perhaps even threaten - human lives. However, for some celebrities, these impacts are already becoming a reality. Women in the entertainment industry, in particular, have borne the brunt. Not too long ago, there were wild AI-made pictures of Taylor Swift going around before X and Instagram shut it down. And now, Scarlett Johansson is the latest name caught up in the AI-related controversies.

The actress has made allegations against OpenAI for using her brand without permission. 

It was September 2023 when Scarlett Johansson got an interesting proposal from Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI. He wanted her to be the voice of the latest ChatGPT 4.0 to make people more comfortable with the revolution AI is bringing. Even though she said no to the opportunity, nine months later, Johansson started hearing from her inner circle and the public that the new system, named Sky, sounded eerily similar to her.

In a statement shared with CNN on Monday, the actress expressed how “shocked, angered, and in disbelief” she was after learning that Sam Altman allegedly used a synthetic voice in the ChatGPT update that sounded so much like hers. Following this, the actress decided to take legal action to have her voice removed from OpenAI. However, the company denied that the voice belonged to the Avengers actress.

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Less than a week later, OpenAI felt the need to set the record straight and state that Sky was not modeled after Johansson.

Even OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman hinted that the vocal design might have been intentionally similar to that of Scarlett Johansson's character, as indicated by his one-word tweet that said, "her". However, the company quickly released a blog post detailing Sky's development. They reaffirmed their respect and appreciation for the voice acting industry.

"Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress”, the blog post read. To respect their privacy, OpenAI decided to zip it on the names of the voice actors. While celebrities often get caught up in deepfake shenanigans, this time it was a bit of a head-scratcher as to who was really in the right. Anyhow, OpenAI has decided to pull the plug on the voice feature in ChatGPT after the controversy.

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What do you think about Scarlett Johansson's allegations? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!