The Scarlett Johansson Dispute Erodes Public Trust In OpenAI

Scarlett Johannson has gone to war with OpenAI, and in the battle for public opinion, OpenAI is losing--badly. Last week, OpenAI released an update of its AI chatbot called ChatGPT-4o, which featured a female voice talking to its users. Many people pointed out that the voice, which sometimes seemed to veer into flirtation, was eerily similar to Scarlett Johannson's in the 2013 dystopian sci-fi film Her. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long talked about how much the movie inspired the company's products, and even made the connection clear last week by tweeting the title of the movie. But on Monday, Johannson released a statement saying OpenAI had asked her to be the voice of the chatbot, and when she refused, they found a soundalike.