Tbf here Altman really screwed this over with that tweet and very sudden contacting. There probably wouldn't be much of a case otherwise.
If I had to guess the best faith order of events (more than what OpenAi deserves):
- someone liked Her (clearly)
- they got a voice that sounded like Her, subconsciously (this is fine)
- someone high up hears it and thinks "wow this sounds like SJ!" (again, fine)
- they think "hey, we have money. Why not get THE SJ?!"
- they contact SJ, she refuses and they realize money's isn't enough (still fine. But this is definitely some schadenfreude here)
- marketing starts semi-indepenently, and they make references to Her, becsuse famous AI voice (here's where the cracks start to form. Sadly the marketer may not have even realized what talks went on).
- someone at OpenAi makes one last hail Mary before the release and contacts SJ again (this is where the trouble starts. MAYBE they didn't know about SJ refusing, but someone in the pipeline should have)
- Altman, who definitely should have been aware of these contacts, makes that tweet. Maybe they forgot, maybe they didn't realize the implications. But the lawyer's room is now on fire
So yeah, hanlon's razor. Thus could he a good faith mistake, but OpenAi's done a good job before this PR disaster ruining their goodwill. Again, sweet Schadenfreude even if we are assuming none of this was intentional.
I'm a pretty forgiving person, I don't really mind mistakes as long they are 1) admitted to 2) steps are taken to actively reverse course, and 3) guidelines are taken to prevent the same mistakes from happening.
But you more or less drain thst good faith when you are caught with your pants down and decide instead to double down. So I was pretty much against OpenAI ever since the whole "paying for training data is expensive" response during the NYT trials.
----
In general, the populace can be pretty unforgiving (sometimes justified, sometimes not). It really only takes one PR blunder to tank thst good faith. And much longer to restore it.
Mistakes should be made once and once only, irrespective of good or bad faith. It is no longer a mistake when you do the same misstep over and over again, it is a deliberate pattern of behaviour.
If I had to guess the best faith order of events (more than what OpenAi deserves):
- someone liked Her (clearly)
- they got a voice that sounded like Her, subconsciously (this is fine)
- someone high up hears it and thinks "wow this sounds like SJ!" (again, fine)
- they think "hey, we have money. Why not get THE SJ?!"
- they contact SJ, she refuses and they realize money's isn't enough (still fine. But this is definitely some schadenfreude here)
- marketing starts semi-indepenently, and they make references to Her, becsuse famous AI voice (here's where the cracks start to form. Sadly the marketer may not have even realized what talks went on).
- someone at OpenAi makes one last hail Mary before the release and contacts SJ again (this is where the trouble starts. MAYBE they didn't know about SJ refusing, but someone in the pipeline should have)
- Altman, who definitely should have been aware of these contacts, makes that tweet. Maybe they forgot, maybe they didn't realize the implications. But the lawyer's room is now on fire
So yeah, hanlon's razor. Thus could he a good faith mistake, but OpenAi's done a good job before this PR disaster ruining their goodwill. Again, sweet Schadenfreude even if we are assuming none of this was intentional.