ChatGPT’s latest update has caused the chatbot to unexpectedly speak back in a user’s cloned voice, OpenAI has admitted.
The artificial intelligence research organisation has released the "system card" for its GPT-4o model, which contained logs from its testing.
These documents showed in rare occurrences the model's Advanced Voice Mode unintentionally imitated users' voices without permission, Ars Technica has reported.
OpenAI said: “During testing, we also observed rare instances where the model would unintentionally generate an output emulating the user’s voice.”
A clip of the interaction has been released. It is possible to hear a woman talking, a male voice following up and then the woman’s voice used to continue the conversation.
The woman had been hired to test the product, it is understood, and her identity has not been made known.
The admission has led to complaints online and tech journalist Max Woolf tweeted: “OpenAI just leaked the plot of Black Mirror's next season.”
Another added: “I should be able to ask it to speak to me in whatever "tone" I want. If that tone is Scarlet Johansson, so be it.”
OpenAI has said that it has completed risk tests to ensure that users are kept safe.
A statement added: “Some of the risks we evaluated include speaker identification, unauthorised voice generation, the potential generation of copyrighted content, ungrounded inference, and disallowed content.
“Based on these evaluations, we’ve implemented safeguards at both the model- and system-levels to mitigate these risks.”
GPT-4o has been undergoing testing since it was announced in May.
The model promises an application programming interface that is twice as fast as its predecessor as well as greater processing ability for images, voice and video.
One controversy has been how an AI voice with the programme is said to sound like Scarlett Johansson.
In a statement, Johansson said she was “angered” the AI voice apparently sounded much like hers, which she claimed came after turning down an approach from the company for vocal work.
OpenAI said the avatar’s voice is “not an imitation” of Johansson and was in fact another actress using her own natural speaking voice.
