Scarlett Johansson explains why she turned down the role of voice actress for OpenAI’s chatbot.
Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reached out to the 39-year-old actress to inquire about potentially hiring her as a voice actor for the ChatGPT 4.0 system.
Johansson, who voiced the artificially intelligent virtual assistant Samantha in the 2013 film “Her,” recalled in an interview with The New York Times that when Altman approached her about the job, she said, “No thanks. I can’t do it.”
“I didn’t want to be at the forefront of that,” Johansson told The Times. “I felt it went against my core values.”
Scarlett Johansson accuses Open AI of plagiarizing her voice: “I’m shocked” and “I can’t believe it”
Scarlett Johansson has spoken out about turning down the role of voice actor for OpenAI’s chatbot. (Paolo Brocco/FilmMagic)
Johansson explained that concerns about children’s reactions also played a factor in her decision to turn down the project.
The Avengers star shares a nine-year-old daughter with ex-husband Romain Dauriac, 42, and a two-year-old son, Cosmo, with her current husband Colin Jost, 42.
“I don’t like kissing and telling. He told me this, but I never told anybody except my husband,” Johansson said of receiving the role from Altman.
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“I also thought it would be weird for my kids,” she added. “I try to be considerate of them.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to a representative from OpenAI for comment.
Jonathon told the outlet he found AI “nebulous” and was concerned by the uncertainty about its future impact.
Johansson said she only told her husband, Colin Jost, about the job offer. (Getty Images)
In May, OpenAI released ChatGPT, which featured a voice called “Sky.” At the time, many The observer pointed out Skye’s voice is uncannily similar to Johansson’s.
On the day the technology debuted, Altman took to X (formerly Twitter) and posted simply, “Her.”
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Johansson later released a statement saying, “When I heard the public demo, I was shocked, outraged, and in disbelief that Mr. Altman was pursuing a voice that was so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and the press could not tell the difference.”
“Altman tweeted the word ‘her’ in reference to the film in which I voiced Samantha, a chat system that develops intimate relationships with humans, implying that the similarity was intentional,” Johansson added.
The actress said taking on the job would have been “weird” for her children. (Arturo Holmes/WireImage)
“When the voices started coming out it didn’t seem real. All of a sudden I was getting so many messages,” Johansson told The Times.
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“I was actively avoiding participating in the conversation and it made me feel really uneasy,” she added. “I thought, ‘Why did I get caught up in this?'”
“It was insane. I was so angry.”
In a statement in May, Johansson said her legal team had sent two letters to the company demanding an explanation for how it had incorporated the voice of a personal assistant into its AI technology.
Johansson expressed concerns about deepfake technology. (Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
Altman later released a statement to Fox Business regarding Sky’s voice.
“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson, and we have never attempted to resemble her. We cast a voice actor to voice Sky prior to engaging Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have discontinued the use of Sky’s voice in our products. We apologize to Ms. Johansson for not communicating more appropriately,” the statement said.
In an interview with The Times, Johansson expressed concerns about deepfake technology and the lack of laws regulating its use.
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“It’s like a dark wormhole you can never get out of,” the two-time Academy Award nominee said.
“When you try to remove something in one place, it pops up in another. Some countries have different laws and rules. If an ex-partner is spreading deepfake porn out of revenge, it could completely ruin your life.”
Fox News Digital’s Janelle Ash contributed to this report.
