Have you ever watched ‘her’ where Joaquin Phoenix comes as Theodore Twombly and falls in love with his AI virtual assistant Samantha? The personified female voice you hear is Scarlett Johansson’s. Inspired by it or not, ChatGPT has been trying to make a similar version of its voice assistant. By similar it means so close that it resembled Johansson’s. Following a backlash from the actress for intruding into her safety, the OpenAI’s ChatGPT voice assistant is here. The newly launched “alpha” version of the voice assistant comes as a rival to Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.
The new voice is tested by over 100 external red teamers and experts covering 45 languages. This testing helped the company to identify potential safety risks. A report on the same is scheduled for release in early August.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT voice assistant: The ‘Sky’ Controversy
Access to OpenAI ChatGPT voice assistant is now limited to some paid users. The preliminary version was slated to be out by late June. But with the post-demonstration of the assistant in the GPT-4 launch event in May, controversies stirred up regarding Johansson’s privacy. It was the voice ‘Sky’ that caught the attention sounding similar to Johansson’s. Particularly, the voice felt the same as that of Johansson’s AI interface in the 2013 film “her.” The issue escalated with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman cryptically tweeting “her” on the day the ChatGPT-4o version and voice assistant were announced.
With no other option, the OpenAI acknowledged the fact that the sounds were similar. But also stood by its stance that the voice belonged to “a different professional actress using her natural speaking voice.” The company also claimed that it worked with “industry-leading casting and directing professionals to narrow down over 400 submissions before selecting the 5 voices.” Despite the apology from Altman, Johansson sent a letter to OpenAI saying she was “shocked” over the voice and “was forced to hire legal counsel” in response.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT voice assistant: The game change
Amidst the talks, the OpenAI tried developing a new voice. The company said it needed time to “launch standard.” It took a little long but came up with more features. It added some privacy features to prevent the voice assistant from impersonating others’ voices. The feature would also block requests to generate copyrighted materials. The new voice demonstrated notable improvements over ChatGPT’s current voice capabilities. The voice assistant keenly listens to the prompts and showcases excellent responses in real-time. It responds to multiple speakers. The new voice features will utilize OpenAI’s cutting-edge AI model to directly process and understand audio inputs. It doesn’t need any intermediate text conversion. The sophisticated voice recognition technology, enable the bot to interpret the emotions and respond empathetically. Besides this, the company is on its mission to add more voice options.
About the OpenAI ChatGPT
Back in November 2022, OpenAI rolled out its first ChatGPT. Since then, the company has been releasing updated versions of the product. Helping with education, work, entertainment and more, ChatGPT has become an inevitable part of our daily lives. With the new voice assistant, the OpenAI is soon to become a member of the families!
