The Ghost at the Feast and the Ghost Haunting OpenAI
1 book, 2 stories, and 3 quotes
Ever since becoming a superpower, America has played “the ghost at the feast.” Through multiple world wars, America tried to remain neutral amidst escalating tensions and violence. Instead of acting with decisiveness to deter European aggressors, America was passive.
Isolationist.
It begs the question — what could have been the outcomes had America not been the ghost at these feasts? Could the two world wars (and the Holocaust) have been prevented had America made it vividly clear to Germany what would happen if they took aggressive, violent action to expand their empire?
The same questions are true today with Vladimir Putin. Could the war in Ukraine have been prevented had America acted more forcefully from the outset to deter violent aggression? What do the lessons from World War I and II tell us about the war in Ukraine today?
Robert Kagan answers some of these questions in his book, The Ghost at the Feast. I reviewed it here and also gave my take on what the historical lessons mean for dealing with an aggressive Russia today. You can also watch the related video here:
Overall, I give the book 4.5 / 5 stars. It’s not a full 5/5 as Kagan is light on what America should have done instead of being an isolationist ghost. With that said, he highlights the problem well — there’s a clear line one can draw from America’s isolationism before both world wars and the escalation of violence by belligerent European (and Japanese) autocrats.
So the one book to read this week is The Ghost at the Feast by the neoconservative scholar, Robert Kagan.
OpenAI has its own ghost haunting them
Uh oh. Big problems brewing for OpenAI. Check out what Scarlett Johansson had to say about OpenAI using a wildly similar voice to her own in its latest release, ChatGPT-4o. Johannson had apparently just refused a deal with OpenAI to license her voice to them.
Here is HER statement:
“Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and AI. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people.
After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named “Sky” sounded like me.
When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word “her” - a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.
Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there
As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the “Sky” voice. Consequently, OpenAI reluctantly agreed to take down the “Sky” voice.
In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.”
OpenAI’s ghost is not limited to Scarlett Johansson, who famously played the AI lover in the movie, HER.
Their ghost that has yet to fully reveal itself is the horde of other artists, creators, and intellectual property rights-holders OpenAI has used to train its models and/or used in its products (i.e., someone’s voice). These groups all have potential claims related to their image, likeness, and work product being unused inappropriately by OpenAI (and its competitors).
The problem — courts have not settled what qualifies as fair use in the new AI Wild West. But we are sure to find out soon! I love how Sam Altman allegedly completely ignored Johansson’s refusal and proceeded to use her voice anyways.
OpenAI should consider developing a system to license image, likeness, and work product before they sink under a Napster-esque tidal wave of litigation.
One of the most revolutionary products Apple developed was the iTunes Store for this reason — they found a legitimate way for people to purchase music and fairly compensate artists.
OpenAI and other AI companies need to do the same.
Three quotes
“When you think of Napster, you think of music. But the first thing that struck me was that this was an important case not only for the music industry but for the whole Internet.”
“We must open our eyes and see that modern civilization has become so complex and the lives of civilized men so interwoven with the lives of other men in other countries as to make it impossible to be in this world and out of it.”
“Bullies and mafia state leaders like Putin only respect great powers that use force to get what they want. The second they smell weakness and are given an inch, they take the mile.”
From my essay: “How American Pacifism Led to World War I and Now May Lead To World War III”