Late last year, we learned that the world's first AI actress, Tilly Norwood, had arrived on the scene, with creator Eline Van der Velden claiming that talent agents were already interested in signing her digital character.
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 was not buying Van der Velden's attempt at clarification, however. The acting guild released the following statement last September, 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.”
Despite the backlash, Norwood is now set to "star" in her first feature, a sci-fi comedy drama from Particle 6 titled Misaligned.
The project is described as a “coming-of-age story infused with existential AI chaos. Set inside the so-called Tillyverse, a surreal digital world located somewhere up in the Cloud, the film will follow Tilly, an AI being with no real body, no childhood and no lived experience of her own … only access to everyone else’s. Things spiral when a seductive rogue bot from the dark web convinces her to abandon her guardrails and begin developing desires, impulses and ambitions, making her more human."
Many feel that the advent of AI is simply something we're going to have to get used to, and some view the introduction of a fully AI performer as not being all that different from 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.
“The film will absolutely be funny, chaotic and self-aware — very Tilly,” said van der Velden of Misaligned. “But underneath it, there’s something deeper about identity, performance, and our very human fears around AI. And yes, art will most definitely be imitating life.”