I agreed with op, then i read your astute response and now I don’t know which position is correct.
Thinking it through as i type… If you photoshopped an image of Tom Hanks giving a thumbs up to your product, that would clearly be illegal, but if you hired an exact flawless lookalike impersonator of Tom Hanks and had him pose for a picture with a thumbs up to your product, would that be illegal? I think it might still be illegal, because you purposely hired a lookalike impersonator to gain the benefit of Tom Hanks’ brand.
I think the law on AI should match what the law says about impersonators. If hiring an indistinguishable celebrity impersonator to use in media is legal, then ai soundalikes should be legal too, and vice versa.
I think what it comes down to is intention. Are you intending to mimic someone else’s likeness without that person’s permission? That’s wrong. But if you just like someone’s voice and want to use them, and they happen to have a similar likeness, that’s fine.
Where OpenAI gloriously fucked up is asking Johansson first. If they hadn’t, they would have plausible deniability that they just liked the voice actor’s voice. If it reminds them of Johansson, that’s even fine. What’s wrong is that they specifically wanted her likeness, even after she turned them down.
I agreed with op, then i read your astute response and now I don’t know which position is correct.
Thinking it through as i type… If you photoshopped an image of Tom Hanks giving a thumbs up to your product, that would clearly be illegal, but if you hired an exact flawless lookalike impersonator of Tom Hanks and had him pose for a picture with a thumbs up to your product, would that be illegal? I think it might still be illegal, because you purposely hired a lookalike impersonator to gain the benefit of Tom Hanks’ brand.
I think the law on AI should match what the law says about impersonators. If hiring an indistinguishable celebrity impersonator to use in media is legal, then ai soundalikes should be legal too, and vice versa.
when you get into these nitty gritty copyright/ip arguments you realize it’s all just a house of cards to make capital king and the main ism
I think what it comes down to is intention. Are you intending to mimic someone else’s likeness without that person’s permission? That’s wrong. But if you just like someone’s voice and want to use them, and they happen to have a similar likeness, that’s fine.
Where OpenAI gloriously fucked up is asking Johansson first. If they hadn’t, they would have plausible deniability that they just liked the voice actor’s voice. If it reminds them of Johansson, that’s even fine. What’s wrong is that they specifically wanted her likeness, even after she turned them down.