Scarlett Johansson said she was “shocked, angered and in disbelief” when she heard the OpenAI voice.  Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Scarlett Johansson takes on OpenAI

OpenAI asked Scarlett Johansson, who played the virtual assistant in the movie “Her,” to become a voice of a chatbot. Johansson said no twice.

But last week, the company released a virtual assistant that had a voice that Johansson said sounded “eerily similar to mine.” She hired a lawyer and asked OpenAI to stop using the voice, called Sky.

The company suspended its release of Sky over the weekend. OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, said that “the voice of Sky is not Scarlett Johansson’s, and it was never intended to resemble hers.”

Johansson is the latest high-profile person to accuse OpenAI of using creative work without permission. The company has been sued for copyright violations by authors, actors and newspapers, including The Times, which sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft.