The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) says it fully supports American actress Scarlett Johansson against tech research company OpenAI.

Johansson claimed that the artificial intelligence (AI) company created a voice for its new ‘Sky’ feature that sounds like her without her consent after she previously declined to voice the chatbot herself.

In an official statement on its website on Tuesday (May 21), SAG-AFTRA said, “We thank Ms Johansson for speaking out on this issue of crucial importance to all SAG-AFTRA members. We share in her concerns and fully support her right to have clarity and transparency regarding the voice used in developing the Chat GPT-4o appliance ‘Sky’. 

 “SAG-AFTRA members are among the most talented and often most recognisable people on the planet. That is why we’re strongly championing federal legislation that would protect their voices and likenesses — and everyone else’s as well —  from unauthorised digital replication.  

 “We are pleased that Open AI has responded to these concerns and paused their use of ‘Sky’, and we look forward to working with them and other industry stakeholders to enshrine transparent and resilient protections for all of us.”

READ: Scarlett Johansson says OpenAI chatbot voice ‘eerily similar’ to hers