OpenAI pulls ChatGPT AI voice over its resemblance to Scarlett Johansson in the movie 'Her'

OpenAI announced it would pull one of the ChatGPT voices named "Sky" after it created controversy for its resemblance to the voice of actress Scarlett Johansson in "Her," a movie about artificial intelligence.

"We've heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky," the Microsoft-backed company posted on X. "We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them."

The 2013 sci-fi film "Her" is about a man who falls in love with an artificial intelligence system named Samantha, voiced by Johansson.

The news comes one week after OpenAI debuted a range of audio voices for ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, a new AI model called GPT-4o, and a desktop version of ChatGPT.

Users watching the live demonstration of ChatGPT's audio capabilities immediately began to post on social media that the "Sky" voice sounded like Johansson in the movie. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman seemingly referenced the film in a post on X, simply writing "her."

In a Sunday blog post, OpenAI wrote that the chatbot's five voices — Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky — were selected through a casting and recording process that spanned five months. Casting professionals received about 400 submissions from voice and screen actors and whittled that number down to 14, according to the company. Then an internal team selected the final five.

"Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson but belongs to a different professional actress using her own natural speaking voice," the company wrote. "To protect their privacy, we cannot share the names of our voice talents."

OpenAI plans to test Voice Mode in the coming weeks, with early access for paid subscribers to ChatGPT Plus, according to recent blog posts, and it also plans to add new voices.