Scarlett Johansson is speaking out about the reasons she turned down the job of voicing OpenAI’s chatbot.
Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reached out to the 39-year-old actress about potentially hiring her to voice the ChatGPT 4.0 system.
In an interview with The New York Times, Johansson, who voiced the character of Samantha, an artificial intelligence virtual assistant in the 2013 film “Her,” recalled that she said, “No, thank you. Not for me,” when Altman approached her about the gig.
“I felt I did not want to be at the forefront of that,” Johansson told the Times. “I just felt it went against my core values.”
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Scarlett Johansson is speaking out about turning down voicing OpenAI’s chatbot. (Paolo Blocco/FilmMagic)
Johansson explained that concerns about her children’s reaction also factored into her decision to refuse the project.
“The Avengers” star shares a daughter, 9, with ex-husband Romain Dauriac, 42, and son Cosmo, 2, with husband Colin Jost, 42.
“I don’t like to kiss and tell. He came to me with this, and I didn’t tell anybody except my husband,” Johansson said of receiving the job proposal from Altman.
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“I also felt for my children it would be strange,” she added. “I try to be mindful of them.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to representatives for OpenAI for comment.
Johnasson told the outlet she is apprehensive about AI, which she described as “nebulous,” and the uncertainty about its future implications.
Johansson said she only told husband Colin Jost about the job offer. (Getty Images)
In May, OpenAI launched its ChatGPT, which featured a voice called “Sky.” At the time, many observers pointed out that Sky’s voice bore an uncanny likeness to the voice of Johansson.
On the same day the technology debuted, Altman took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and simply posted “her.”
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Johansson later shared a statement, saying, “When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference.
“Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her,’ a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human,” Johansson added.
The actress said taking on the gig would have been “strange” for her children. (Arturo Holmes/WireImage)
Johansson told the Times that when “that voice was introduced out into the wild, it was surreal. Suddenly, I was getting all these messages.”
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“I had actively avoided being a part of the conversation, which was what made it so disturbing,” she added. “I was like, ‘How did I get wrapped up in this?’
“It was crazy. I was so angry.”
In her May statement, Johansson wrote that her legal team had sent the tech company two letters asking it to explain how it came up with the personal assistant’s voice in its AI technology.
Johansson shared her concerns about deepfake technology. (Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
Altman later issued a statement to FOX Business regarding Sky’s voice.
“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers. We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson. Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better,” the statement said.
While speaking with the Times, Johansson expressed concerns about deepfake technology and the lack of legislation regulating its use.
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“It’s like this dark wormhole you can never climb your way out of,” the two-time Academy Award nominee said.
“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.”
Fox News Digital’s Janelle Ash contributed to this report.