A young female and aspiring actress, by the name of Tilly Norwood, has been mistaken for being a human, since she is fully made out of AI. Made by Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden, Tilly has the ability to pose for photos, act in sketches, and is currently able to converse with several talent agencies.
However, A-list stars like Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne, and Whoopi Goldberg have condemned the creation of the synthetic performer.
Actress Emily Blunt, on a podcast with Variety, spoke about Norwood and how she finds the creation to be terrifying. Similar to Whoopi Goldberg, who spoke on The View about her concerns of AI being able to take away actors’ jobs from human actors, and the audience being able to differentiate between something being AI and human. Actress Natasha Lyonne also added that any talent agencies that would use Norwood should be boycotted.
Additionally, the Screen Actors Guild American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, SAG-AFTRA, commented on Norwood, saying “she is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers”.
Adding on to their statement by saying, “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”. SAG-AFTRA is reminding agencies and studios that using Norwood in movies and TV shows can be an issue when it comes to the contract protection they had been promised in 2023.
Since AI has been a touchy subject within the filming industry in Hollywood, it was the main problem during the labor strikes and shut down the industry almost two years ago. Due to this, both writers and actors had demanded protection from emerging technology.
Even with the backlash the AI actress and company are receiving after releasing her, the Dutch creator had posted on Tilly Norwood’s own Instagram page a response to everything. She stated that her creation was not intended to be a “replacement for a human being, but a creative work – piece of art”.
Furthermore, Eline Van der Velden had spoken about her AI production studio and new AI talent agency Xicoia, and had mentioned that Hollywood and several agencies have been embracing the use of AI under the radar. As she had talked about how, in the coming months, there should be announcements of high-profile projects that are using AI.