The actress, who has been nominated for two Academy Awards, said she was first approached by Mr. Altman in September about voicing the new chatbot.
“(Mr. Altman) said he felt that by giving a voice to the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creators and help consumers feel comfortable with the sea change around humans and AI,” Johansson said.
“He said he felt my voice would comfort people.”
However, she said she ultimately declined the offer for personal reasons.
She added that two days before the launch of the Sky chatbot, Mr Altman contacted his agent urging Johansson to reconsider his initial refusal to work with the company.
She added that she was forced to hire a lawyer and said she sent two legal letters to the company to find out how the voice was created.
“I believe these issues need to be absolutely clear in a time when we are all dealing with deepfakes and struggling to protect our likeness, work and identity,” she said.
In a statement shared by OpenAI with the BBC, Mr Altman denied that the company had tried to imitate Johansson's voice.
He wrote, “Skye's voice is not Scarlett Johansson's voice and was never intended to be like hers.”
“We cast the voice actor behind Sky's voice before contacting Ms Johansson. Out of respect for Ms Johansson, we have paused the use of Sky's voice in our products. We apologize for our failure to communicate better. “Sorry Johansson.”
Separately, the company said it was “working to suspend” the voice, addressing questions about how it was selected in posts by X, formerly Twitter.
OpenAI said in a blog post that the five voices used by its chatbots were sampled from voice actors it partners with.