Actress was ‘shocked, angered and in disbelief’ when she heard AI voice; company says AI voices shouldn’t mimic a celebrity’s
2 min
Actress Scarlett Johansson criticised OpenAI over a ChatGPT voice she says is “eerily similar” to her own.
The tech company said Monday it was pausing use of the voice, known as Sky, so it could address questions about how it chose the ChatGPT voices. Many people online have drawn comparisons between Sky and Johansson, who voiced an artificial-intelligence assistant in the 2013 sci-fi romance “Her.” The actress said in a statement her closest friends couldn’t tell the difference.
Johansson said OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman wanted to hire her last year to provide her voice for ChatGPT’s current system. She declined. When the actress heard Sky, one of five voices the company offers for its AI tool, she said she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” that Altman would use a voice so similar to hers.
Johansson said her lawyers asked Altman and OpenAI for more details on how they created Sky.
“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity,” Johansson said.
The voice of Sky was never intended to resemble Johansson, Altman said in a statement Monday evening.
“We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson,” he said. “Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products.”
In a blog post Sunday, the company said it picked the five voices from more than 400 submissions from actors, looking for voices that sounded timeless and were easy to listen to.
OpenAI said Sky was the natural voice of another actress whom it hired and wasn’t an imitation of Johansson. It wouldn’t name the actress, citing privacy reasons.
The conflict with Johansson adds to the challenges confronting OpenAI, which has been sued by authors, artists and media companies for allegedly using their material without permission or payment. It also serves as a distraction at a time when OpenAI is trying to highlight new products and move beyond its leadership crisis last fall, when the company’s then-board of directors fired Altman for failing to be “consistently candid.” Altman was quickly reinstated as CEO.
OpenAI announced an updated ChatGPT voice feature a week ago. It builds on a product released in September that allows users to talk to its AI tool instead of type and hear responses in five different voices. OpenAI said users can have a more humanlike conversation with the new version, which responds almost instantaneously and can switch quickly between emotional tones.
The updated feature is part of a new AI system , called GPT-4o. It is the company’s latest attempt to attract more users and dominate the market for generative AI technology. The feature will be available to users who pay for ChatGPT-Plus, which costs $20 a month.
At the announcement last week, Altman likened the voice feature to something only seen in movies.
The CEO said in a speech last year that he and other OpenAI executives found inspiration in “Her,” which starred Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely man who falls in love with the voice assistant Samantha, voiced by Johansson. OpenAI employees posted references to the movie on X after the May 13 voice announcement. Altman posted a one-word tweet : “her.”
—Deepa Seetharaman contributed to this article.
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Apple’s first foldable, the $1,999 iPhone Duo, combines an iPhone and iPad Mini experience—but its size, weight and price come with compromises.
4 min
As I watched a Netflix show on Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, I had two surprising thoughts.
The first: Maybe I don’t need my iPad Mini anymore.
The second: Uh oh, am I about to spend $1,999 on a phone?
I didn’t think folding phones were for me. I’ve been testing Android versions from Samsung and Google since 2019, and those early editions came with too much screen and too many compromises.
Fast forward seven years, and the technology has come a long way. Apple—in its very Apple way—has also come up with some hardware and software trickery to make up for some shortcomings of the basic design. My desire for a folding phone before today was zero. After today, it’s a lot more than zero.
I’m not ready to recommend the Duo, which ships on Oct. 23, just yet. Not until I am able to test it more fully, so be on the lookout for that review in a few weeks. But from what I experienced at Apple Park on Wednesday, I could actually picture myself using this new half-phone, half-tablet hybrid.
For months, I’ve been using Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, a similarly squat, passport-shaped foldable that opens up to a larger screen. It’s impressively thin and can easily fit into the infuriatingly tiny pockets in women’s pants and dresses. Samsung did a lot of work to minimize the crease—the dip between the two halves of the big interior display—but it’s still clearly there.
When I held the iPhone Duo open, the crease was barely visible. As I slid my finger across the display, I could feel it, but it’s more subtle than Samsung’s. Most of the time, the screen looked as flat and smooth as the one on an iPad.
Apple employed both software and hardware techniques to camouflage the crease. The matte surface of the interior 7.6-inch screen minimizes reflections to hide it. (Samsung’s Fold 8 screen is shiny.)
And as you begin to open or close the iPhone Duo, the interface shifts the controls and content away from the center crease. If, say, you’re watching a video on the outer screen, you can open the Duo to switch to the bigger display within. A black fade marks the transition. You don’t see the video full screen until the phone is completely flat.
My second observation was that, when the Duo is closed, in phone mode, it was harder to use one-handed than I expected.
In the keynote trailer and press release, Apple touted how thin the Duo is. It’s marketed as the thinnest iPhone ever—when open.
But it’s actually thicker and heavier than most of its Android competitors. The Duo weighs 254 grams, and is 11.3 millimeters thick when closed. The Samsung Galaxy Fold 8 is just 201 grams, with a thickness of 9.7 millimeters. Google’s Pixel 11 Pro Fold is 239 grams and 10.1 millimeters.
Because the Duo is also wider than a standard iPhone, I found it quite a challenge to type.
I admit, I do have smaller-than-average hands. So I consulted my colleague Rolfe Winkler, who has a larger grip. He agreed the Duo feels big.
Apple rearranged the interface on the outer screen so it looks different than traditional iPhones. The dock and control center are off to the right to be more reachable. Committing to the Duo as your main device will require adjustments in your handling. You will have to learn a new way to use and type.
My most surprising takeaway? I feel a pull toward this device.
I always thought that combining an iPhone and an iPad would mean bigger compromises. The battery life is about the same as the 18 Pro (up to 24 hours of “regular use” on a single charge), though I’ll need to verify that in my real-world testing. And it’s also as durable, with the same IP68 dust- and water-resistance rating as the rest of the iPhone lineup.
There are trade-offs, for sure. Trying out the camera, I immediately missed the 8X zoom in my Pro model. The Duo has just 2X zoom, which wouldn’t cut it for the dozens of pictures I take of my kid every day.
But the dual screens unlock new photo functionality. You can see what your shot looks like from the outside screen. As someone who has tried tirelessly to self-direct a family photo—or a spouse—I am very eager to try this out more.
Foldables, I initially thought, were for classic mobile-warrior jet-setter types, who never sit at a desk and are always on calls. For that crowd, the Duo can run two apps side-by-side.
Me, I’m more of a bed binge-watcher and ebook reader. That’s what my beloved iPad Mini is for.
Watching videos on the Duo is a nice experience—nice enough that you forget the screen is 0.7 inches smaller than the iPad Mini’s. The main screen is also a 4:3 aspect ratio. Very similar, by the way, to the IMAX edition of the Odyssey.
Because I wasn’t able to snag a ticket to one of the sold-out screenings, I will be watching Christopher Nolan’s version of Homer’s epic on the Duo, just as the director intended. (Just kidding! Sort of.)
The Duo costs $800 more than an iPhone 18 Pro, and I’m not sure I want to spend that premium on a first-generation Apple device. But I’m not ruling out the idea that a Duo might one day be in my future. Stay tuned for my full review.
