ChatGPT’s new Voice Mode update is here for some paying users, and it definitely won’t sound like Scarlett Johansson.
Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the imminent release for ChatGPT’s new Advanced Voice Mode, and as of Tuesday, it’s available for some $20 per month ChatGPT Plus subscribers. Notably, it’s available in four preset voices, not the five announced at launch, with the voice sharing likeness with the Her actor removed by the company after backlash.
The company announced the rollout on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday, declaring it available “to a small group of ChatGPT Plus users.” OpenAI added in a thread that it would “continue to add more people on a rolling basis and plan for everyone on Plus to have access in the fall.”
When OpenAI debuted GPT-4o in May, a new AI model that fuses text, video, and audio with five preset voices, it featured a “Sky” voice option that sounded eerily similar to Johansson’s and particularly her performance as a digital assistant in the 2013 film Her. Johansson was not impressed, took legal action, and OpenAI dropped the voice.
“To protect people’s privacy, we’ve trained the model to only speak in the four preset voices, and we built systems to block outputs that differ from those voices,” reads OpenAI’s tweet from Tuesday. “We’ve also implemented guardrails to block requests for violent or copyrighted content.”
So, if you’re a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, how do you know if you’re included in this “small group”? OpenAI explained in an X thread, “Users in this alpha will receive an email with instructions and a message in their mobile app.”
OpenAI added it had “tested GPT-4o’s voice capabilities with 100+ external red teamers across 45 languages.”
The update was supposed to arrive in June but was delayed. OpenAI added it would “share a detailed report on GPT-4o’s capabilities, limitations, and safety evaluations in early August.”
OpenAI announced a bunch of extra features also coming with the Voice Mode update — Mashable’s Alex Perry has the details.
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