ChatGPT voice discontinued after user complaints of similarity to Scarlett Johansson

OpenAI recently revealed ChatGPT-4o, a platform designed to facilitate natural human-computer interaction through voice. However, the company has temporarily halted one of the AI model’s voices due to its striking resemblance to actress Scarlett Johansson.

OpenAI announced in a recent statement that it plans to temporarily suspend the use of the Sky voice in ChatGPT due to user feedback. Some users expressed that the voice sounded too similar to Scarlett Johansson. Sky is just one of the five voices available on ChatGPT-4o.

The company stated that they have received inquiries regarding the selection process for the voices used in ChatGPT, particularly Sky. They have decided to temporarily suspend the use of Sky while they address these concerns. The company further directed users to a blog post on their official site for more information.

We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky.

— OpenAI (@OpenAI) May 20, 2024

OpenAI revealed in their blog post that they collaborated closely with the voice acting industry to select the voices for ChatGPT. The company clarified that Sky’s voice is not intended to imitate Scarlett Johansson’s, but rather belongs to a different talented actress who uses her own natural speaking voice. However, OpenAI chose not to disclose the name of the voice actor for privacy considerations.

In the movie Her, Scarlett Johansson portrayed a virtual assistant character who is the object of a man’s love for an AI system. Similar to the assistant in the film, ChatGPT-4o has the ability to accept a mix of text, audio, image, and video inputs and produce a variety of text, audio, and image outputs.

OpenAI appears to have drawn inspiration from the movie “Her.”In fact, when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made a one-word post on X, he simply wrote “her,”referencing the film.

Despite the ongoing issue, Scarlett Johansson has not released a statement. However, the actor had previously taken legal action against an AI-powered advertising agency named Lisa for using her name and image in an online advertisement without her consent.

Despite the fact that OpenAI has temporarily stopped using the Sky voice for ChatGPT, you are still able to converse with it using four other voices: Breeze, Cove, Ember, and Juniper.