The double sexism of ChatGPT’s flirty “Her” voice

But if OpenAI didn’t do anything wrong, why would it take down the voice?

This almost made me stop reading. What a garbage point, if someone is offended by something I did, even if I did nothing wrong, I don't do it to them again because I'm not an asshole. He's clearly an asshole who tried to use her voice anyway, but this line of questioning is garbage...decent people apologize all the time when they've done nothing wrong, and then not do the offending thing again, without admitting guilt.

But the design choice is worrying on an ethical level. Researchers say it reinforces sexist stereotypes of women as servile beings who exist only to do someone else’s bidding — to help them, comfort them, and plump up their ego.

And this is where I stopped. If they had used a male voice, they could have argued that they were excluding women. But they did a study and picked the voice people would respond to the best. And objective choice. The author set out to find sexism, and by golly they did it. Amazing.

Yeah this is a real: "Let me find a problem and not let them apologize." You don't like Open AI. Ok. I'm sure you have a good reason. So focus on that and stop contriving controversy. You're not changing any minds like that. That only gets kudos from people that already agree with you.
What a garbage point, if someone is offended by something I did, even if I did nothing wrong, I don't do it to them again because I'm not an asshole.

Putting aside the jury still being out in the last part of that statement, Sam Altman has showed himself to not only be an asshole, but an asshole who will do anything he thinks he can get away with. So the statement you took issue with "but if OpenAI didn't do anything wrong, why would it take down the voice" is accurate. Considering the pattern of behavior from Altman and OpenAI that action is a rather implicit admission of guilt.
- They did something wrong. We both agree.
  
  But the suggestion that doing something to correct the offense is considered an admission of guilt is garbage logic. This is why people are so hesitant to apologize or move to correct perceived wrongs, because people treat doing so as an admission that you did something wrong.
Why not just have both a male and female voice, and ideally one that's as neutral as possible?
- They do have 2 male voices. The article is complaining about the choice of sky for the demo.
- Neutral is boring? Flaws add as much character to a thing as beauty
- There is a choice of different voices, it wasn't and isn't a problem. But Sky was the best in my opinion, so even if I support the right of ms Johansson to not hear her voice out of every device, it's personally kinda sad that they're removing it
The potential of a "exclusion argument" does not justify reinforcing the servile, assistant stereotype. Researchers arent pulling that one out of their ass.

I could pull together a youtube playlist of beardy men explaining why woman hating is bad. Would you like that?

(Edit: Rhetorical. We can all see your true colors with the "gay agenda" conspiracy pushing bs.)
- The potential of a “exclusion argument” does not justify reinforcing the servile, assistant stereotype.
  
  My point is that no matter what openai did, the author could have found sexism in it. It's not hard to create something like this if you're really trying.
  
  I could pull together a youtube playlist of beardy men explaining why woman hating is bad. Would you like that?
  
  I don't follow.
  
  (Edit: Rhetorical. We can all see your true colors with the “gay agenda” conspiracy pushing bs.)
  
  Lol. I've been an lbgtq ally probably even before you were born. The fact that I can see that this ridiculously biased source for what it is doesn't make me a conspiracy theorist against gay people.
  
  Thanks for demonstrating my point. You were desperate to reveal my "try colors" and, by golly, you were going to find it regardless of how much you had to spin.
Well what about the fact that they asked her to do it multiple times and right before they launched it the CEO tweeted the word "Her"?
- He’s clearly an asshole who tried to use her voice anyway
  
  Can you explain to me what you think this line meant?Because I'm not sure how I could have made it more clear.

IMO it sounded fake, not fake like artificial or not being real, but more like not being honest or genuine. Like a bit too much or over-attached girlfriend.
Don't get me wrong, it was very impressive, but IMO they should tone down the fake enthusiasm.

GPT is just trying to get a good tip.
- Don't stick your dick in that
- Hee hee

Even if they hired an actress with a similar voice to train the AI to sound similar to Johansonn, celebrity impersonators have been doing that for (I'd guess) longer than recorded voice media has even existed. I'm having a hard time seeing why one is fine but the other isn't.

Edit: corrected bad spelling of her name.

I'm having a hard time seeing why one is fine but the other isn't.

I think the law says that neither is fine, in the context here. The law allows celebrity impersonators to engage in parody and commentary, but not to actually use their impersonation skills to endorse products, engage in fraud, and pretend to be that person being impersonated.
- But this is just using a voice. It might even be their natural voice. I don't think there's fraud because it wasn't presented as Scarlett's voice. If it wasn't presented as not her voice, then maybe those other two would apply, though is allowing a service to use your voice the same as endorsement? Is it enough to sound like someone to be considered impersonating them?
  
  This situation lands in a grey area where I can't endorse or condemn it. I mean, it would have been smarter to just use a different voice. Find a celebrity that would sign on or just use an unrecognisable voice. Ethical or not, and legal or not, it was stupid.
Legally maybe its fine, I’m not sure. But because they tried to license or get permission and involvement officially from her, but she declined, then they asked again , she declined again and two days later they released it with (possibly) her voice anyway. At best it displays them to be bad faith plundering abusers including of individuals’ likenesses. We in this type of forum are not surprised of course - its par for the course with these tech bros who’ve made a business out of other peoples content largely without consent. Respect to Johansonn for making this known publicly though. But even weirder that they then took it down when they saw the reaction. Highlighting themselves as Sociopaths. Plenty of those around, but with this much power and access to data? Creepy.
- Yeah, it is kinda sketchy, though they might have backed down because they realized there was no winning this in the court of public opinion, regardless of whether they were trying to act in good faith prior to the controversy coming out.
  
  IMO Johansonn making it public was an obvious strategic move because it gave her a strong position because of how unpopular AI is these days. She might have otherwise just paid some lawyers a lot of money to accomplish nothing if it was legally fine and she was adamant about them not using a voice that sounded like hers (guessing the best she would have gotten without going public is them paying her some money to continue using that similar voice or maybe a bit more money to use her actual voice, either way they would have gotten what they wanted).

Isn't calling the voice "flirty" sexist? It didn't seem flirty in any of the clips I heard of it.

This was my voice of choice because it sounded like a "person on the other side" is engaged. Like when you talk to a friend or teacher who's interested in the topic.
If somebody thinks it's somehow related to sexuality, gender questions, etc, they have to check themselves.

I hate to defend Sam but Scarlet does not have a patent on a bubbly mid western accent.

He tweeted "Her", which explicitly tells us it's a deliberate imitation of Scarlett's voice in that movie. And he tried to negotiate licencing her famous voice, which she rejected.

So it's more than just a coincidence, it's deliberate bad faith behaviour. Legally you can't misrepresent a product as being from a famous person when it wasn't, and he very much did that. I guess he was hoping she'd give in and accept the licensing agreement post-facto. But instead it looks he's in legal deep water now.
- That's not proof of anything. It's the most well known reference to a "AI Girlfriend" in popular culture that there currently is.
  
  This reminds me of when the Fine Brothers tried to trademark the word "react" or when Paris Hilton did the same thing for "That's hot".

What, does it talk like that grey bluetooth speaker often featured on Dankpods?

The potential of a "exclusion argument" does not justify reinforcing the servile, assistant stereotype. Researchers arent pulling that one out of their ass.

I could pull together a youtube playlist of beardy men explaining why woman hating is bad. Would you like that?

Liberals are really freaking out about a computer program being nice to low status men.

I've listened to it, and it sounds nothing like Scarlett does. I had to find a movie with Scarlett in it to compare with, and I can honestly tell you ChatGPT sounds nothing like Natasha in Black Widow.

(Joke aside, ChatGPT doesn't sound like Scarlett at all).

After the uproar, I was expecting it to be way closer...but not at all? Really?
- I probably should say "IMO".
  
  They played it on a local radio station here yesterday, and even they were mocking it as "not close".

She has a very generic sounding American sultry woman voice, imo. Seems like a money grab to me. She's not dumb, she sued Disney for some nonsense, and now she's starting shit with the soon to be biggest company in the world.

She's just latching onto the fact that any time women complain about shit like this, and use words like sexism, gaslighting, misogyny, etc, it gets a lot of traction in the media.

What a horrible woman.

You could like... read about it before you talk?
- I did. And unlike you, I can draw my own conclusions, rather than let the media dictate them for me.
  
  Maybe try thinking a bit, before simping for these celebs. She's just taking the opportunity to get some money, that's all. She's purposely throwing these words around because she knows you white knights will freak out about it and jump on her side. It's scary how easy it is to manipulate you guys.
  
  Well, I'm not gonna waste my time explaining to you. It's not my job, and I just don't want to. If you wanna simp for her, go ahead.
Didn't she sue Disney for breach of contract? That doesn't sound like nonsense.
- Nope. She sued because she felt she was owed more money. Disney released the movie on their streaming service at the same time as it was released in cinema.
  
  There was no "breach of contract", otherwise she would have won easily. Instead, she and Disney settled out of court. She was just being greedy. Disney probably didn't want the bad publicity and paid her off.
Ok woman hater
- Resorting to name calling I see 😂😂😂 that's what happens when you know I'm right, but refuse to change your wrong views.

This is several days too late news... But sure.

This article was published the same day it was posted here. Believe it or not you can read more than one article about the same topic, over several days even.
- And sometimes the first news isn't the most accurate
It's not a news piece.