Was that Scarlett Johansson’s voice? Odd as it may sound, that was the question that was riling the tech world this week. After OpenAI unveiled a new voice-based version of its ChatGPT AI application, people immediately suggested it sounded a bit like Scarlett Johansson — particularly because the actor had played the voice of an AI assistant in the 2013 movie, “Her.” Upon first listen, you could see why people thought that.
It does sound a bit like the famous actor. Johansson thought so too. She put out a statement saying that .
That sent the tech world into a tizzy. Wasn’t this just like big tech — to simply appropriate what in wanted to without asking, and without regard to fairness or rights? To my mind, it’s a fair enough assessment of tech as an industry. But a Washington Post report just a couple of days later revealed that OpenAI had hired an actor to voice their AI assistant months before CEO Sam Altman contacted Johansson.
The controversy, it turned out, was over a resemblance, not an outright theft. Yet, the kerfuffle over voice and likeness lingered in my mind this week. As I scrolled through my social media, I came across a video of a girl in Portugal appearing to capture a blue streak racing through the sky.
It turned out to be a fragment of a meteor, which left what looked like a trail of fire behind it. My first thought: this was obviously fake. The sky lit up blue, seeming more like a scene from a movie than something that actually happens.
Like .