Scarlett Johansson ‘Shocked, Angered’ After OpenAI Bot Has Voice Eerily Like Hers

OpenAI pulled one of the voices from its latest iteration of ChatGPT after it drew comparisons to actress Scarlett Johansson and her role in the science fiction film, “Her.”

The tech company unveiled a demonstration of its new GPT-4o voice-enabled chatbot last week, which is set for public release in the coming days. The new update allows the popular program to receive voice commands, generate images from vocal prompts and eventually converse with users. GPT-4o includes five voice selections, including one called “Sky,” that viewers said sounded eerily similar to Johansson.

The actor described her conversations with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in a statement Monday, saying she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” after the demonstration, noting she declined an offer to voice the new system when she was approached by the company last year.

“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system,” Johansson said in a statement. “He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI.”

She went on to say she declined the offer “for personal reason.” Altman, she added, attempted to reach her two days before the demo was released, but “before we could connect, the system was out there.”

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerie similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference,” Johansson said. She later added: “In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness,