OpenAI made an enemy of Scarlett Johansson when it launched a ChatGPT voice that sounded a lot like her.
The superstar could be a foe that Sam Altman's artificial-intelligence company will come to regret tangling with.
In a statement to Business Insider on Monday, Johansson said she was "in disbelief" at the similarity between Sky, OpenAI's new feature, and her own voice.
The company had asked her to collaborate on a voice, she said — but she turned it down.
OpenAI says it was just a coincidence — that the voice is that of another woman who sounds like her.
But to Johansson, it seems like the company just went ahead without permission.
The actor is no stranger to squaring up to big companies, even those that employ her.
In 2021, she sued Disney over the release of "Black Widow," saying that it deprived her of earnings by modifying the movie's release schedule.
Disney settled. While the terms were never made public, it looked like a victory for Johansson and apparently was enough to satisfy her.
OpenAI, in turn, did not seem eager for a fight, pulling Sky with little notice.
It's understandable — Johansson's grievance is a vivid and powerful demonstration of the increasingly prominent concerns around AI.
In her statement, Johansson cited worries anyone could share: deepfakes, protecting your likeness.
She also brought up issues specific to creatives whose likeness is their source of income.
Last year, Hollywood was gripped by strikes, fueled in part by actors anxious that AI could one day mimic them so well that they would lose their livelihoods.
Hollywood's power brokers conceded — the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers struck a deal with the SAG-AFTRA union requiring consent to create AI versions of performers.
It established a new norm that, in Johansson's view, OpenAI disregarded, in an echo of the archetypal Silicon Valley "move fast and break things" approach.
And Johansson is not unique. Smaller-time actors are suing AI firms with similar allegations.
Some publishers, notably The New York Times, are suing, too.
The Times alleges that OpenAI's used its archive to train products like ChatGPT and is demanding a settlement in the billions of dollars.
Those cases may be hard to get too excited about: A text archive is nowhere near as emotive as a voice.
And that's what could make Johansson such a dangerous adversary — equipped with a superstar status, an ax to grind, and the platform from which to do it.
