By Tess Hill
Copyright hellomagazine
Artificial intelligence is everywhere these days. From our internet searches to our doctor’s offices, it seems AI is infiltrating every industry. The latest AI creation to take over social media is more realistic than any before it. Tilly Norwood is an artificial intelligence-generated actress created by Xicoia – the AI division of Particle6. And Tilly is creating quite the disturbance in Hollywood. The AI actress was created by Dutch actress and comedian, Eline Van der Velden, who said during a tech summit that “we’re standing at the dawn of a new category – AI-powered celebrity IP.”
Tilly was loosely launched in July, but over the weekend, the AI actress was officially unveiled and even drew interest from talent agents. Backlash against Tilly has been loud and swift. During an interview with Variety, Oscar nominated actress Emily Blunt reacted to the AI actress by saying: “Does it disappoint me? I don’t know how to quite answer it, other than to say how terrifying this is.”
She continued: “No, are you serious? That’s an AI? Good Lord, we’re screwed. That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.” The View host, Whoopi Goldberg, chimed in with her thoughts: “The problem with this…is that you are suddenly up against something that has been generated with 5,000 other actors.”
The powerful actors union SAG-AFTRA also responded to the news. “SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics,” the guild said in a statement. “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.”
The statement continued: “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 was very concerned with AI during the 2023 actors strike and the guild secured protections for actors’ likeness and performances against AI.
HELLO! spoke to Steve Roop, the AI content and content director of Littlefield Agency about the rise of AI in the entertainment industry. Steve said: “AI in entertainment feels less like a revolution and more like another addition to special effects wizards’ toolboxes. We’ve had non-human characters in films for decades, whether animated, CGI, or motion-capture, the difference now is that AI can generate both the look and the performance without a voice actor in the mix.”
After the backlash against Tilly Norwood, Eline Van der Velden posted to social media: “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.” Eline went on: “I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a new paintbrush.”
While some agencies are interested in signing Tilly, Gersh Agency president, Leslie Siebert, told Variety that she would not be surprised if an agency signs the AI actress, but “we’re not going to be that agency.” And AI expert Steve Roop told HELLO!: “If I were a filmmaker, I’d still prefer to work with a human actor who can bring lived experiences, emotions, and nuance that algorithms are unlikely to replicate.”
He continued: “Actors’ humanity is still the irreplaceable ingredient audiences connect with.”
