Hollywood is currently in an uproar over one of its newest potential talents, Tilly Norwood. Yet there is something that sets Tilly Norwood apart from every other working actor. She is not human, she is a product of AI.
Norwood was made by the AI company Particle6 Productions, led by comedian and writer Eline Van der Velden, who announced in September at the Zurich Film Festival that several talent agencies were looking to cast the AI creation in various films and shows.
Van der Velden clarified after receiving backlash that Norwood is not a replacement for actors but instead calling it a creative work and that this is just another form of art, comparing it to puppets, animation, and CGI that have also replaced live acting in entertainment.
SAG-AFTRA, the union for actors in film, television, and radio, has quickly responded stating that, “‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers—without permission or compensation”.
Personally I found this development a disgusting devolution of art. What Tilly Norwood is doing is not acting, she’s simply executing a command that was given to her. Since she isn’t real, her acting is just repeating the lines given to her, she has no real emotions or human experiences to pull from in her delivery.
How can an audience connect or relate to a film if the star is a program attempting to mimic human actions? In what way is this art?
While Van der Velden has compared this to puppets, animation, and CGI, those three are all made by humans and their own original thoughts. As opposed to AI actors, these all require human artistry to be successful. While a studio is responsible for the creation of Norwood, setting the guidelines for what they want her to execute does not compare to the artistry that goes behind crafting an animation or perfecting a visual effect through CGI.
This is not the first time that the entertainment industry has been faced with questions over how to deal with artificial intelligence. Back in 2023, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, demanding protections against AI, fighting for the prevention of studios utilizing AI to write or rewrite scripts instead of actual writers. They protested against using the work of writers to train AI and the overall devaluing of the work that writers do.
Artificial intelligence has been slowly making its way into the entertainment industry for sometime, threatening the jobs of those who were behind the scenes in a production. This threat continues to grow with the creation of Tilly Norwood now jeopardizing the careers and livelihoods of actors, cheapening the effort they put into their performances by replicating that with an AI program.
Studio systems need to take a stand against this growth, making a strong line that separates AI with human artistry. We are at a point in time where AI is so woven into daily life, it is necessary to make a clear separation between what should and should not utilize it.
