AI gobbles up whatever it wants | Horsey cartoon

Is artificial intelligence devouring the Earth? Ask Scarlett Johansson.

OpenAI, supposedly the most ethical of the many too-clever-for-our-own-good Dr. Frankenstein companies that are racing to create more and more powerful AI systems, is in trouble with the Hollywood actress. The company had tried for months to hire Johansson to voice one of their chatbots. She turned them down but, strangely, when OpenAI unveiled their latest version of ChatGPT last week, it featured a voice that sounded exactly like the sultry voice of the movie star.

Simultaneously, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a message on X that recalled the 2013 movie “Her,” in which Johansson was the voice of a sexy AI companion who messes up the emotional life of a lonely human. When Johansson threatened to bring in the lawyers, Altman hit the pause button on her chatbot doppelganger.

If this ends up in court, it will be only the latest legal challenge to AI creators.

The thing is, in order to reach its full potential, AI must be fed vast amounts of information. In fact, according to AI developers, AI could consume all the data on the planet and would still be hungry for more. Desperate for data, the people who are hoping to get enormously wealthy from selling an unending range of AI services to the public could follow the rules and pay for all the copyrighted content they need. But making deals with thousands of authors, publishers, journalists, news organizations, actors, movie studios, TV networks, cartoonists and other creative entities would be a gargantuan task – plus, it would take a huge bite out of profits.

Instead, AI companies have skipped that step and have been surreptitiously stealing every bit of data they can get their hands on. This has outraged pretty much everyone who is having their copyright violated. In December, The New York Times brought lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing the companies of using the newspaper’s copyrighted material to train chatbots that will compete with The New York Times as a source of information.

OpenAI and Microsoft insist they are doing nothing wrong. Like all their colleagues in the tech world, they see nothing but virtue in their cutting-edge endeavors. They are demigods creating a new world, after all, so why should they have to deal with petty impediments like copyright law?

And why should they let Johansson own her own voice when they can make so much money with a facsimile that sounds as good as the original? 

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