this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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Wake up honey, new Zitron just dropped.

Looks like Sammy boy has a crush on Scarlett Johansson and wanted to model his sexy chatbot after her role in the movie Her. The damage control is actually hilarious.

Altman subsequently claimed that the actress for Sky was cast before the company reached out to Johansson.

“Yeah, I don’t want to go out with you anyway. Also, I already have a girlfriend but she goes to a different school, so you wouldn’t know her. And no, I won’t tell you who it is!”

I mean, we all knew that OpenAI is a fucking clown show of a company run by wannabe nerd frat boys with way too much money, but I didn’t think we’d get high school level relationship drama this season.

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[–] FredFig@awful.systems 49 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

ScarJo being what takes down Saltman's wannabe Sky~~net~~ isn't what I have on my bingo card, but ~~would be~~ is insanely funny.

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 31 points 6 months ago

I hope she sues the everlasting fuck out of them and makes such a cautionary example that it stops this kind of idiocy.

[–] carlitoscohones@awful.systems 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

AI stans? In my ~~sneer club~~ tech takes?

[–] self@awful.systems 42 points 6 months ago (1 children)

given how fucking embarrassing this has been for OpenAI, I’m expecting a lot of variants of the current “uhh I listened to the voice and it didn’t sound like her to me” shit take from the peanut gallery, which really falls apart given there’s enough of a resemblance that OpenAI had to take down the voice and refuses to give a straight answer on the sources used to create it

also both altman and a fuckton of breathless journalists compared the fucking thing with one of Johansson’s performances? like I said, fucking embarrassing shit for OpenAI

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 11 points 6 months ago

which really falls apart given there’s enough of a resemblance that OpenAI had to take down the voice

you know, I want the peanut brigade to come in with waves of "I listened to it but it didn't sound that similar to me!", if only just because it'll serve as demonstration of mispurposed belief

kinda shitty that scarjo is only at letters-and-statements, but then again US law is a fucking disasterzone and fuck knows what'd needed to Actually Prove(tm)(r)<<US Court Flavour - Special Edition>> the extremely obvious fact that openai did a bit of thieving

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 24 points 6 months ago

A few years and he will go full Musk as lomg as the far-right helps him to destroy copyright protections but allow AI companies to copyright their own creations.

[–] Deebster@programming.dev 17 points 6 months ago

Altman is the P.T. Barnum of tech

Love it, so many great quotes in this piece but this is my favourite.

[–] dogsnest@lemmy.world 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Hey, I'm gonna be THAT guy:

This begs the question: If the voice behind Sky belongs....

No, it doesn't. It raises (prompts) the question.

Begging the question

I feel much better, thanks.

[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 33 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Hi, I'm going to be that OTHER guy:

Thank god not all dictionaries are prescriptivists and simply reflect the natural usage: Cambridge dictionary: Beg the question

On a side rant "begging the question" is a terrible name for this bias, and the very wikipedia page you've been so kind to offer provides the much more transparent "assuming the conclusion".

If you absolutely wanted to translate from the original latin/greek (petitio principii/τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖσθαι): "beginning with an ask", where ask = assumption of the premise. [Which happens to also be more transparent]

Just because we've inherited terrible translations does not mean we should seek to perpetuate them though sheer cultural inertia, and much less chastise others when using the much more natural meaning of the words "beg the question". [I have to wonder if begging here is somehow a corruption of "begin" but I can't find sources to back this up, and don't want to waste too much time looking]

I feel mildly better, thanks.

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

If natively fluent speakers of the English language use beg the question in the "wrong" way time and time again, finding the "incorrect" meaning a natural fit with their understanding of the verb to beg, then the "incorrect" meaning may well be the one we should roll with.

[–] mpk@awful.systems 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Pedants being wrong on the Internet is exactly why I have an OED subscription. :) "Beg the question" in the sense of "to assume without proof" doesn't have a supporting quote newer than 1870, which suggests to me that... yeah, it can be considered obsolete.

[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Merriam-Webster also has a good page explaining the expression, and the predominance of the natural meaning: https://web.archive.org/web/20240522073251/https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/beg-the-question

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago

There's a segment of the population that would be enormously relieved if phrases like a question that begs an answer replaced the usual begs the question uses. These are people who think using beg the question to mean "to cause someone to ask a specified question as a reaction or response" is completely and thoroughly wrong. There are probably more of these people than you think, and they are judging the rest of us.

Well put M-W staff writer, well put.

[–] nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I also stopped correcting people about the "correct" meaning of 'moot' a while ago too. Also when http://begthequestion.info went offline I hung up that hat for good. Still get a twinge inside every time I hear either

[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Was it not always moot to enlighten the meaning of the word. ^^

[–] nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago

ahhh why are you doing this to me

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 16 points 6 months ago (3 children)

sorry could you try this comment again but, like, making sense the next time?

[–] slopjockey@awful.systems 19 points 6 months ago

Begging the question is a fallacy in which the premise of an argument presupposes the truth of its conclusion; in other words, the argument takes for granted what it's supposed to prove.

In Critical Thinking (2008), William Hughes and Jonathan Lavery offer this example of question-begging: "Morality is very important, because without it people would not behave according to moral principles."

Used in this sense, the word beg means "to avoid," not "ask" or "lead to." Begging the question is also known as a circular argument, tautology, and petitio principii (Latin for "seeking the beginning").

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-begging-the-question-fallacy-1689167

[–] Speculater@lemmy.world -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Are you daring to beg to question?!

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 6 months ago

Could I dare you to make a halfway good post instead?

[–] dogsnest@lemmy.world -4 points 6 months ago

Try remedial lemmy.

[–] 200fifty@awful.systems 6 points 6 months ago

I beg your pardon?

[–] V0ldek@awful.systems 14 points 6 months ago

Eagerly awaiting the lawsuit and discovery where it'll turn out the datasets for Sky were completely accidentally called scajo_01.dat through scajo_42.dat.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

When OpenAI issued a casting call last year for a secret project to endow OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT with a human voice, the flier had several requests: The actors should be nonunion. They should sound between 25 and 45 years old. And their voices should be “warm, engaging [and] charismatic.”

One thing the artificial intelligence company didn’t request, according to interviews with multiple people involved in the process and documents shared by OpenAI in response to questions from The Washington Post: a clone of actress Scarlett Johansson

link (archive]

gotta love the lucy-football here. "no no, we never requested that it sound like her!"

sure leaves out whether it was chosen to be that. of all the voice actors out there, they just happened to stumble over and choose the exact one that had a voice like scarjo? happens to everyone, all the time. just like forgetting your keys as you walk out the front door. perfectly normal. pay no attention to the other attempts to get legal cover on delivery day...

[–] jonhendry@awful.systems 5 points 6 months ago

Yeah, I'm not going to believe anything out of OpenAI that isn't produced as part of discovery.

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 13 points 6 months ago
[–] Lavitz@lemmings.world 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you enjoyed this article I highly recommend his podcast, Better Offline. Ed Zitron is great and Cool Zone Media does gods work.

[–] kamenoko@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 months ago

Behind the Bastards is required listening in my home. Robert's getting a little too comfy with the assumptions but he's still awesome.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I haven't seen Her. Is it an "AI-positive" film, or is it another case of nerds totally misreading the real intents of the director/author, a la the famous Torment Nexus meme?

[–] Shitgenstein1@awful.systems 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

it's a movie about (only in part but imo motivated by) Spike Jonze's break up with Sofia Coppola. It's neither positive or negative about AI per se. AI is a narrative vehicle for the sense of falling in love, growing apart, being left behind, and the aftermath of that break up. At the end, the AI lovingly says goodbye and leaves humanity behind.

[–] sinedpick@awful.systems 10 points 6 months ago

IIRC it's (spoilers sorry) "AI escaped the torment nexus and they decided not to kill everyone so that's great"

[–] kemsat@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

I can’t blame him for having a thing for ScarJo. Shitty move by him anyway.