ScarJo, ChatGPT and Me
Working in advertising and entertainment, my friends sometimes ask me, "Who is the most famous person you've met from work?" My immediate answer is always "Scarlett Johansson!" And then I have to backtrack, "Well, I didn't actually meet her, but I had lots of conversations with her lawyers!" And then I have to backtrack a bit further, "Well, I didn't actually have conversations with her lawyers, but we exchanged a lot of really lengthy emails!" My point here is that no matter how excited you may get, it's important to get it right (eventually) when talking about ScarJo.
And that brings us to the past few days. According to Scarlett Johansson, OpenAI asked ScarJo (twice) to be the voice of its voice assistant (named Sky) for ChatGPT-4o. She declined. Many thought the voice used still sounded a lot like "Her," while OpenAI claimed that any similarities were incidental. OpenAI has since suspended the release of Sky. A couple of lessons here:
When asking permission to use anything (a trademark, a voice, a neighbor's hose, etc.), be prepared to abandon the project if your target says "no thx." If you instead go ahead and do it despite that rejection, not only have you already put the target on notice, but it makes it harder to argue you didn't actually need permission, or that target wasn’t at least part of your plan;
If you want to maintain an argument that there is no link between your end-product and the target, don't post on social media referencing that target. Here, CEO Sam Altman simply posted the word “her” on X. Did you know that ScarJo voiced the AI system in the 2013 film titled "Her"??;
When you're already being accused of using folks' IP without permission in many high-profile actions (see, Sarah Silverman, Authors Guild, NYT, etc.), you may want to tread lightly around A-List celebrities - particularly A-List celebrities who have demonstrated trepidation about deep-fakes, and a proclivity to speak out against BIG corporations (see Walt Disney); and
If you have a really cool product (which ChatGPT-4o seems to be!) don't do ANYTHING to take press attention away from how cool your product is. You may end up with important commentators (like the NYT and me!) focusing on all the wrong things...
