OpenAI postpones voice mode for a month as it is being improved

OpenAI delays its voice mode feature by a month due to technical issues.

The developer of ChatGPT had planned to make the tool available to some users—anyone with a Plus account for the AI ​​chatbot—by the end of this month, but the date has been pushed back to July.

“For example, we are improving the model’s ability to detect and reject certain content,” the company explained on X. “We are also working to improve the user experience and prepare our infrastructure to scale to millions of users while maintaining real-time responses.”

Users can talk to ChatGPT and get instant answers.

The company is also working on video and screen sharing features.

Last month, ChatGPT users began petitioning OpenAI to bring back the controversial Sky chatbot voice.

The voice – one of several used by ChatGPT on iOS and Android – was removed after Scarlett Johansson criticized the chatbot for being “eerily similar” to her own, despite declining to license her actual voice.

“I think we need to protest to get Sky’s voice back to ChatGPT,” says the petition on Change.org. “I don’t think it’s fair to be removed. All the other voices just sound really 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’ve ever heard. We hope they bring it back,” the petition says.

The petition was created before Johansson made any public statements on the issue.

“When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angry and couldn’t believe that (OpenAI CEO) Mr. Altman was aiming for a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets couldn’t tell the difference,” she said in a statement.

“Mr. Altman even suggested that the resemblance was intentional by tweeting a single word: ‘she’ – a reference to the film in which I lent my voice to a chat system called Samantha who develops an intimate relationship with a human being.”

Johansson criticized the general rise of artificial intelligence and stressed that the public deserves “absolute clarity.”

“At a time when we’re all grappling with deepfakes and protecting our own image, our own work, our own identity,” said the star of the Marvel franchise, “I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity.”

“I look forward to a solution in the form of transparency and the adoption of appropriate laws that will help ensure the protection of individual rights,” said Johansson.

“Sky’s voice is not that of Scarlett Johansson and was never intended to resemble her,” Altman said in a statement to The edge.

“We selected the voice actor for Sky’s voice before reaching out to Ms. Johansson,” he continued. “Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have suspended the use of Sky’s voice in our products. We are sorry we did not communicate better.”