Though some have questioned the validity of her statement, the creator of AI "actress" Tilly Norwood, Eline Van der Velden, claiming that talent agents were already interested in signing her digital character has been met with a lot of backlash.
A number of well-known Hollywood actors such as Melissa Barrera, Kiersey Clemons, Mara Wilson and Ralph Ineson were quick to share their disdain for the announcement, which prompted the following response from Van der Velden.
“To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood, she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work – a piece of art. Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity."
“I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a new paintbrush. Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories. I’m an actor myself, and nothing – certainly not an AI character – can take away the craft or joy of human performance.”
SAG-AFTRA is not buying Van der Velden's attempt at clarification, however. The acting guild released the following statement, condemning Norwood's creation and refusing to acknowledge her as an actor.
“To be clear, ‘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. It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”
“Signatory producers should be aware that they may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used.”
Many feel that the advent of AI is simply something we're going to have to get used to, and there are those that view the introduction of a fully AI performer as not being all that different to the practice of "resurrecting" a deceased actor via CGI (Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, for example).
At any rate, it seems clear that Hollywood has no intention of making things easy for any studio that does intend to play ball, so it should be interesting to see how things unfold from here.