Why Scarlett Johansson may sue the AI company OpenAI

The Hollywood Star has sued the AI company OpenAI for alleged misuse of her voice, featured as part of the ‘Sky’ voice offering in the latest launch of GPT-4o.

Johansson further said that she had previously turned down a request from the company to user her voice for the audio-interacting voice system.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has recently been the subject of a corporate controversy, has clarified that the voice belongs to another professional voice artist who has not been named for ‘privacy concerns’.

The SAG-AFTRA has wholly backed Johansson, and given the recent turmoil caused by use of CGI and software to replace screen writers and the roles and voices of actors in content, there is no doubt that this trial will unveil an entirely new nuance of the capabilities of technology and how and why it should be regulated in such an environment. AI has further become a focal point for studios as they are trying to bring in lower cost productions to cater to the new direct to home streaming model.

Johansson states that she has been forced to hire legal counsel and has addressed two letters to open AI inquiring as to how the sound alike Chat GPT voice ‘Sky’ was made. This would also remind fans of her notable role as the voice artist of the AI Voice assistant program in the movie Her.

Altman has admitted that Her is one of his favourite movies and after the ChatGPT event last week he posted the word ‘her’ which could be a reference to this admiration for that movie and Johanssons role in it.

Johansson has insisted that she wants a transparent resolution and protection of individual rights in an era of deepfakes and computer generations.

Early Monday morning, OpenAI announced that it would role back the voice of ‘Sky’ in the latest version of the AI Program to address the issue.