Scarlett Johansson's OpenAI clash is just the start of legal wrangles over artificial intelligence

When OpenAI's new voice assistant said it was "doing fantastic" in a launch demo this month, Scarlett Johansson was not. The Hollywood star said she was "shocked, angered and in disbelief" that the updated version of ChatGPT, which can listen to spoken prompts and respond verbally, had a voice "eerily similar" to hers. One of Johansson's signature roles was as the voice of a futuristic version of Siri in the 2013 film Her and, for the actor, the similarity was stark. The OpenAI chief executive, Sam Altman, appeared to acknowledge the film's influence with a one-word post on X on the day of the launch: "her". In a statement, Johansson said Altman had approached her last year to be a voice of ChatGPT and that she had declined for "personal reasons".