- OpenAI plans to pause ChatGPT's "Sky" voice after it was compared to Scarlett Johansson.
- The company has said the voice isn't an imitation of Johansson and belongs to a different actor.
OpenAI said it would "pause" ChatGPT's "Sky" voice after it sparked comparisons to Scarlett Johansson.
The company shared a blog post on X, saying: "We've heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them."
Many social-media users linked the latest update to Spike Jonze's prophetic 2013 film "Her" and compared the voice to Johansson's character in the film. The plot features a man falling in love with an artificial-intelligence system.
Some commentators complained that the bot's voice sounded overly sexual and was too flirty in some of the demos.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman even appeared to address the similarity, posting the word "her" on social media during a recent company demo that heavily featured the voice.
But the company's chief technology officer, Mira Murati, told The Verge the voice had not been designed to sound like Johansson, adding that someone in the demo's audience had asked the same question.
OpenAI addressed the comparisons to Johansson directly in the blog post, saying the voice was not modeled on Johansson's.
"Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice. To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents," the company said in the post.
Representatives for OpenAI didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.
Last week, the company demoed a new AI model named GPT-4o, which uses native audio inputs and outputs. When integrated into ChatGPT, users can have human-like conversations with the bot, speaking to it and showing it things.
The result is designed to feel like having a real-time virtual assistant, or what could be considered an AI best friend, in your pocket.