First of her kind AI âactressâ Tilly Norwood has recently made headlines, as Hollywood studios and agencies have expressed interest in signing her for upcoming acting work. This has resulted in widespread backlash, with many in the entertainment industry voicing strong opposition to AI involvement in the acting industry. A variety of actors, including Emily Blunt and Natasha Lyonne have come out to criticise this creation, with Blunt stating âplease stop taking away our human connection.â
Tilly Norwood is an entirely AI-generated creation of Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden through her company Particle6. Tilly has her own Instagram account, which has skyrocketed in popularity since she made the news, currently having a following of over 64,000 people at the time of writing. Although her bio indicates transparency, stating âIâm a creation. #aiartâ, she has captions for her posts that imply she is human, such as âWaving like I havenât just spiralled over something I said in 2016,â despite the fact that she is (technically speaking) only a few months old. Thus, celebrities are understandably concerned about what this blurring of boundaries between reality and AI means for the future of the entertainment industry. Particle6 has released a statement defending Tillyâs existence, stating that they donât intend for her to be âa replacement for a human being, but a creative work – a piece of artâ. Despite this, it is undeniable that her existence, and the likely future emergence of similar AI âactorsâ, will reduce opportunities in the entertainment industry for real-life actors.
However, there are two other factors to Tilly Norwoodâs identity that are less discussed in the media, but troubling nonetheless. Firstly, Scottish actress Briony Norwood has come forward to claim that Tillyâs appearance is based on her own face. Whether this is the case or not, AI does function by learning from reality, and therefore Tillyâs face would have been based off real women in some way, even if this was done indirectly. Indeed, Mara Wilson, known for playing Matilda as a child, questioned why companies might hire Norwood, rather than âthe hundreds of living young women whose faces were composited together to make herâ. Secondly, in Tillyâs âdebutâ, a promotional video released by Particle6, a technician in the video says âsheâll do anything I say,â a chilling statement when one considers what kind of acts a woman without agency can be used for. This effectively removes consent from the acting process, thus creating a setback for female actors everywhere.
Overall, while AI has slowly been increasing in prevalence within many industries, the creative industry is one which had previously been thought to be safe. This is because Artificial Intelligence works not by being genuinely creative but by remixing real-life input. However, the fact that many agents want to sign Tilly Norwood suggests that we are not far from fully artificially generated film and TV. Ultimately, despite criticism from individual actors, if an âactorâ can be paid less and be programmed to do anything, with no need for rehearsal or risk of human error, it seems as if it may unfortunately be only a matter of time before AI involvement becomes more commonplace in the entertainment industry.