‘Black Widow’ Vs AI: Scarlett Johansson threatens to sue OpenAI for recreating her voice

The Black Widow has sworn vengeance on AI! Hollywood diva Scarlett Johansson has lambasted Open AI of plagiarising her voice without her consent. She claimed that the tech giant had come up with a voice that was “eerily” similar to her own, via ChatGPT.

Users noticed a resemblance in the chatbots' ‘Sky’ voice feature, which verbally communicates responses to users, during OpenAI's presentation of its latest model. This cheeky enhancement to its AI chatbot prompted parallels to the character Samantha from the 2013 movie ‘Her’, portrayed by the actress.

The ‘Black Widow’ star wasted no time when the issue came to her notice and issued a statement threatening legal action. Open AI CEO Sam Altman reacted to the statement and promised that he would remove the voice. “The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson's, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky's voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn't communicate better..” he said.


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In the same statement, the ‘Lost In Transition’ star said that she was approached by Altman in September to offer her voice for a ChatGPT feature to which she declined. “When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference…” read a portion of the statement.

This is far from the first time Johansson had a spat with AI companies over unauthorised use of her voice and likeliness'. In November 2023,she initiated legal proceedings against an artificial intelligence (AI) application for unauthorized use of her likeness in an advertisement.

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The debate surrounding the ownership of actors' voices and likenesses has emerged as a central issue in Hollywood, particularly as studios explore the potential of AI in generating fresh entertainment content. With computer-generated images and sounds becoming increasingly indistinguishable from human counterparts, the industry grapples with how to navigate this evolving landscape.