Scarlett Johansson: Ghost in the GPT

Good morning: In today's edition of The Industry, we look at:

Cannes' Apprentice, Mark Wahlberg's Tundra, Demi Moore has substance, from Chekhov to HBO, and a Corsican Godfather.

Let’s go!

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SCARLETT JOHANSSON: GHOST IN THE GPT

her. Warner Bros. Pictures.

In Her (2013), Scarlett Johansson masterfully played an AI operating system named Samantha, who fell deeply in love with her user (Joaquin Phoenix).

A decade later, Sam Altman, the founder of Open AI, Chat GPT’s parent company, reached out to Johansson to voice GPT 4o’s virtual assistant.

Johansson put out a statement, recounting:

“He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.”

Johansson declined to participate.

But last week, during the first product demo of GPT 4o, a voice sounding startlingly identical to Johansson’s in Her was used.

Johansson has already hired legal counsel.

What is most disturbing is not Altman’s alleged theft but his maniacal idea to use Johansson’s voice as a Trojan horse to force mass adoption of his tech upon creatives.

His company’s desire to supplant human creativity has already begun to latch into other domains in the film industry:

• Editing

  • Adobe Premiere/Photoshop plugins

  • ​Clip​

• Documentary filmmaking

  • Sora, their text-to-video generator

• Scriptwriting

  • Chat GPT

How long until we start seeing scripts co-written by GPT?