ChatGPT will be able to talk like Scarlett Johansson in the movie Her

OpenAI is releasing a voice assistant feature inspired by the movie Her that can read facial expressions and translate spoken language in real time.

During a livestream demo on Monday, OpenAI engineers and CTO Mira Murati gathered around a phone to show off the new capabilities. They encouraged the assistant to be more expressive while creating a bedtime story, then suddenly asked the assistant to switch to a robot voice, and then asked to end the story with a singing voice. They then asked the assistant to see what the phone's camera was seeing and respond to what was displayed on the screen. The assistant can also pause while speaking and respond without further prompting while acting as a translator.

ChatGPT will be able to talk like Scarlett Johansson in the movie Her Picture 1 ChatGPT will be able to talk like Scarlett Johansson in the movie Her Picture 1

The assistant's voice feedback bears a striking resemblance to Scarlett Johansson's character in the movie Her, where a man forms a relationship with a complex AI assistant. After the event, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted just one cryptic word on X: 'Her'. He also expressed that Her is his favorite movie. The film explores the theme of loneliness, as well as the relationship between humans and AI.

In a briefing with The Verge, Murati said that the assistant isn't actually designed to sound like Johansson and emphasized that OpenAI has had these voices for a while. 'Maybe the reason I didn't recognize it in ChatGPT is because the voice has so much personality and tone,' says Murati.

These features represent a significant upgrade over ChatGPT's existing voice mode, which can converse with users but with a much more limited level of interaction; For example, the current version cannot be interrupted or respond to what the camera sees. The new capabilities will launch as an 'alpha' release in the 'coming weeks' and will be available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers before a broader roll-out begins.

The new voice assistant comes on the heels of a Bloomberg report claiming OpenAI is close to reaching a deal with Apple to bring ChatGPT to the iPhone. The iPhone's voice assistant, Siri, is notoriously unreliable, so an assistant inspired by the movie Her that was brought to the iPhone might actually have the ability to answer questions instead of ' web search' seems to be the target of this problem.

'The new voice (and video) mode is the best computer interface I've ever used. It feels like the AI in the movies; and I'm still a little surprised that it's true ,' Mr. Altman said in a blog post shortly after the livestream. 'Achieving human-level response times and expressive abilities turned out to be transformative.'

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