OpenAI Pauses Sky After Scarlett Johansson Complaint

OpenAI has paused Sky, one of the voices available in ChatGPT, following a protest from Scarlett Johansson. The actress says she declined to lend her voice to the company and that the version it unveiled sounded eerily similar to hers.

The removal comes a week after the presentation of GPT-4o, OpenAI’s new model designed to converse through text, images and voice with much lower latency. A demonstration of a natural conversation with a female voice immediately prompted comparisons with Johansson and with the film Her, in which the actress played Samantha, a voice-enabled operating system.

Johansson says she turned down two approaches from OpenAI

In a statement released Monday, Johansson said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman proposed in September 2023 that she voice the ChatGPT system. The actress turned down the offer for personal reasons.

According to her account, Altman contacted her representative again two days before the GPT-4o demonstration to ask whether she would reconsider. Before she had responded, OpenAI unveiled the Sky voice.

Johansson says friends, family members and the public noticed the resemblance. She also pointed out that Altman posted a message on X on May 13, the day of the presentation, alluding to the film Her. In her view, that context reinforced the impression that OpenAI was seeking to evoke her vocal identity without her authorization.

OpenAI denies that Sky imitated the actress

The company has maintained that Sky is not an imitation of Johansson. OpenAI says the voice belongs to another professional actress and was created from her natural voice, rather than synthesized using the performer’s voice as a foundation.

Sky was one of five voices OpenAI added to ChatGPT in 2023. But its appearance in the GPT-4o demonstration gave it far greater visibility. The new voice mode promises more fluid exchanges, including interruptions, immediate responses and changes in tone—capabilities that make voice more than a simple accessory and turn it into a central part of the product experience.

OpenAI has said it is suspending Sky while it responds to the questions raised. The company has also said that voices in its systems should not deliberately imitate a celebrity’s distinctive voice.

A voice is more than an interface

The dispute highlights a problem that had remained partly hidden beneath debates over AI-generated images and text. A recognizable voice conveys identity, profession and reputation. For an actor, voice-over artist or singer, it can also be an essential part of their work.

The technology makes it possible to clone or approximate voices from just a few audio samples. But the Sky case shows that the issue is not limited to an exact technical copy. The association created by a voice design also matters: if the public identifies a specific person, a company may capture part of that identity’s cultural value even without using their recordings.

In the United States, legal protection for a voice depends on a combination of publicity rights, state laws and court precedents. There is no single federal rule that resolves every case involving synthetic voices. California, home to many technology and entertainment companies, has recognized for decades that the commercial appropriation of a distinctive voice can violate personality rights, even without reproducing an exact recording.

The challenge for talking assistants

OpenAI’s decision comes at a pivotal moment for voice assistants. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple have offered digital voices for years, but conversational models are raising expectations: it is no longer enough for a voice to read out a response; it must sustain a credible conversation and convey nuance.

That increases the pressure to use appealing, memorable voices, but it also calls for clearer consent processes. For companies, it will not be enough to hire a voice actress if the result is marketed or promoted in a way that leads the public to associate it with another well-known person.

OpenAI will have to decide whether to modify Sky, replace it or explain in greater detail how it selects and validates its voices. The episode has already left the industry with a warning: in conversational AI, identity does not end with a person’s name or image. It may also be found in the way they sound.