Musk said using a voice for ChatGPT that was “eerily similar” to Johansson’s was like something out of the dystopian TV series “Black Mirror,” after the actress slammed OpenAI and said she had declined Sam Altman’s offer to voice the chatbot.
The billionaire famously has beef with Altman and OpenAI. Musk was one of the AI startup’s founding members, before leaving his position on OpenAI’s board in 2018.
The Tesla boss has since become a frequent critic of OpenAI and its CEO and filed a lawsuit against Altman and OpenAI earlier this year, accusing the company of betraying its founding mission of developing AGI responsibly.
Musk has also started his own AI company, xAI, and launched a ChatGPT rival called Grok.
OpenAI has had a rough run since it unveiled GPT-4o, its latest model, earlier this month.
The company’s demo saw employees chat with a version of ChatGPT that some observers pointed out sounded creepily like Scarlett Johansson’s character from the movie “Her,” in which a man falls in love with an AI chatbot played by the actress.
Sam Altman played into the speculation by posting the word “Her” on X, but OpenAI executives denied the likeness was intentional.
However, on Monday, the company abruptly announced that “Sky,” the voice used in the GPT-4o demo, would be temporarily removed.
Johansson later said she had declined an offer from Altman to voice the AI assistant and was “shocked and angered” that OpenAI appeared to have used an “eerily similar” voice to her own instead.
In a statement shared with BI, Altman apologized to Johansson for not communicating better but reiterated that the Sky voice was not intended to mimic hers.
It adds to the chaos rapidly enveloping the Silicon Valley darling, with former exec Jan Leike criticizing OpenAI for putting “shiny products” ahead of safety after resigning last week.
OpenAI was not the only target of Musk’s social media ire. The prolific poster also compared Microsoft’s new “Recall” AI feature to a Black Mirror episode, writing on X that he would “definitely (be) turning this “feature” off.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.
Are you an employee at OpenAI, or do you have concerns around AI technology? Contact this reporter at tcarter@businessinsider.com
