OpenAI is delaying its Voice Mode feature by a month due to technical issues.
The ChatGPT creator planned to roll out the tool to some users — those with a Plus account for its AI chatbot — by the end of this month, but they’ve pushed it back to July.
“For example, we’re improving the model’s ability to detect and refuse certain content,” The firm explained on X. “We’re also working on improving the user experience and preparing our infrastructure to scale to millions while maintaining real-time responses.”
Users can expect to be able to speak to ChatGPT and receive instant responses.
The firm is working on video and screen-sharing functions as well.
Last month, ChatGPT users started petitioning for OpenAI to bring back its controversial Sky chatbot voice.
The voice — which is one of several used by ChatGPT on iOS and Android — was pulled after Scarlett Johansson blasted the chatbot for being “eerily similar” to her own despite declining the licensing of her actual voice.
“I think we need to have a form of protest in order for the voice Sky to return to ChatGPT,” the Change.org petition read. I don’t think it’s fair to get removed. All other voices just sound very bad compared to Sky and aren’t as good.”
“It’s very unfair that a few scared people on Twitter managed to get rid of the best AI voice I have ever heard. We hope that they will bring it back,” the petition stated.
The petition was created before Johansson spoke out publicly about the issue.
“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that [OpenAI CEO] Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded to eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference,” she said in a statement.
“Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word ‘her‘ — a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.”
Taking aim at the general rise of artificial intelligence, Johansson insisted the public “deserves absolute clarity.”
“In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities,” the Marvel franchise star said, “I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity.”
“I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected,” Johansson stated.
“The voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers,” Altman said in a statement to The Verge.
“We cast the voice actor behind Sky’s voice before any outreach to Ms. Johansson,” he continued. “Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn’t communicate better.”
