--- title: "Scarlett Johansson Taking Legal Action Against AI App for Cloning Her Voice Without Permission" description: "Hollywood actor Scarlett Johanson is suing an AI app developer for stealing her voice and likeness for an online ad." date: "2023-11-02" modified: "2023-11-02" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/scarlett-johansson-legal-action-ai" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "generative ai" - "scarlett johansson" - "the digest" --- # Scarlett Johansson Taking Legal Action Against AI App for Cloning Her Voice Without Permission ![Hollywood actor Scarlett Johanson is suing an AI app developer for stealing her voice and likeness for an online ad.]() *\Image: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images\* ## Scarlett Fever Famed Hollywood actor Scarlett Johanson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for stealing her voice and likeness for an online ad, [*Variety* reports](). And no, we're not talking about her role in the 2013 dystopian drama "Her," which featured her as a disembodied voice assistant called "Samantha" with whom the movie's protagonist, played by Joaquin Phoenix, falls in love. No, it's about a 22-second ad posted to X-formerly-Twitter by an AI image-generating app called Lisa AI: 90s Yearbook & Avatar, which allows users to create AI avatars or apply artistic filters to images. The ad shows the "Black Widow" star's face in several AI-generated images and mimics her voice as well. It appeared briefly on October 28 and has "since vanished from the internet," per *Variety*, though the publication was able to review a copy. The app's developers clearly didn't get Johansson's consent first. Kevin Yorn, a representative for Johansson, confirmed to *Variety* that she was not a spokesperson for the app. "We do not take these things lightly," he told the publication. "Per our usual course of action in these circumstances, we will deal with it with all legal remedies that we will have." ## Fighting Back It's the latest instance of a celebrity fighting back after their face or voice was used against their consent to train an AI. Just last month, [Tom Hanks warned his followers]() on social media someone was using his AI likeness to promote a "dental plan." "BEWARE!!" the actor wrote in an Instagram post. "There's a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it." Last month, English actor and broadcaster [Stephen Fry said]() that "it's fucking weird time to be alive" after having an AI be trained on extensive clips of his voice without his consent. And the way the technology is progressing, we'll likely see a lot more cases like it, from an [AI voice clone of the late Johnny Cash]() singing Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" to Facebook's [blonde, 21st-century Jane Austen](). Whether public figures like Johansson will end up having legal recourse, however, remains to be seen. **More on AI:** *[Microsoft Runs Ghoulish AI Poll Next to Article About a Dead Woman]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()