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Scarlett Johansson has reflected on her quarrel with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, agreeing in a new interview that he would make a good Marvel villain.
In May, the Black Widow star, 39, revealed she was approached by Altman about voicing the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. Despite Johansson turning down the opportunity, the company released a voice by the name of Sky, which was subsequently criticized for its similarity to Johansson’s voice.
Johansson released a statement at the time saying that she was “shocked” and “angered” that Altman “would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine.”
In a new interview with The New York Times, she added: “I had actively avoided being a part of the conversation, which was what made it so disturbing. I was like, ‘How did I get wrapped up in this?’”
“It was crazy. I was so angry.”
Asked by the interviewer if Altman would make a good Marvel villain, Johansson responded: “I guess he would – maybe with a robotic arm.”
Following the launch of Sky, Altman appeared to confirm that the system’s voice had been created to reference his favorite movie, Her, in which a man (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with his virtual assistant voiced by Johansson.
However, as OpenAI faced growing controversy over Sky, they denied that the voice had been based on Johansson’s, or that it had been built to mimic her.
Nonetheless, the company pulled Sky’s voice making it unavailable until the company can “address” questions about how the voice was chosen.
“It’s like this dark wormhole you can never climb your way out of,” Johannson told the NYT of the current age of digital replicas and deepfakes.
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“Once you try to take something down in one area, it pops up somewhere else. There are other countries that have different legislation and rules. If your ex-partner is putting out revenge, deepfake porn, your whole life can be completely ruined.”
In 2011, Johansson was the victim of leaked nudes by a hacker who had obtained private photos from her phone that she had sent to her ex-husband Ryan Reynolds.
The hacker, who also targeted Mila Kunis and other women, was eventually apprehended by the FBI and convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2012.
“I think technologies move faster than our fragile human egos can process it,” Johansson added, “and you see the effects all over, especially with young people. This technology is coming like a thousand-foot wave.”
