A new actress is hitting the big screen. Her name is Tilly Norwood, but there’s a catch: she’s not real.
Tilly Norwood is an AI-generated character and she’s causing quite the stir in Hollywood.
“It’s very hard to tell the difference on-screen between someone that is a real living human being and someone that is computer-generated,” said David Richard, a public relations professor at Emerson College and CEO of Big Fish PR.
Tilly Norwood is the first creation from a new studio that develops AI actors. And although the film and television industry has been preparing for something like this, Richard said, it’s understandable why real actors are pushing back.
“This is a serious threat to actors,” Richard said. “You do not need to pay an AI actor anything except electrons for plugging in the computer that runs it and that is a threat to anyone that’s part of the SAG guild,” referring to the Screen Actors Guild.
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Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Velden invented the AI actress and defended her in a social media post, writing, “She is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work – a piece of art.”
Van der Velden added that the AI character “sparks conversation.”
Handout
Handout
A still from a promotional video of artificial intelligence-generated actor Tilly Norwood.
“I feel like this is more a publicity stunt than anything else, but it is definitely a wakeup call to the industry,” Richard said.
The use of artificial intelligence was a central issue during the 2023 actors’strike. In response to Van der Velden saying Tilly Norwood has received interest from several talent agents, SAG-AFTRA hit back in a statement, writing, “The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.”
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While many are expressing concern over AI actors, some say it was only a matter of time before someone like Tilly Norwood arrived in the industry.
“A digitally created actor or actress that lives only in the digital world on screen, I just think it’s inevitable,” said James Joyce, a television studio production professor at Boston University. “I don’t think we should be surprised by it. I think this is where the industry’s been moving.”