OpenAI Accused of Copying Actress' Voice Without Permission

Actress Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI ripped off her voice after she declined to be a featured voice for its AI. Although this story has all the headline-making power of being about AI, it is actually a very old story.  The accusation is of straight-up theft: that she declined to work with the company and they mocked up her voice as the personality of their product anyway. If true, this is a more straightforward claim than many AI-related intellectual property claims to date, which focus on the IP used to train AI systems.  Johansson's accusation is essentially about the branding choices the company made, rather than about how the technology works. If OpenAI indeed co-opted her voice, it did so because it thought consumers would recognize it and respond favorably to it as the voice of AI. That is not a difficult or technical position to explain to a court or jury, and may be includes covered by existing laws that prohibit taking someone's “likeness,” which can include their distinctive voice.  

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