Like thousands of actors, Tilly Norwood is looking for a Hollywood agent. His biggest role? Pretend to be human.
Indeed, Tilly Norwood is a 100% product generated by AI, created by the Dutch producer and actor Eline Van der Velden, founder of a company named Xicoia, which presents itself as the first studio of artificial intelligence talents in the world. Velden is launching its creation of AI as the next Scarlett Johansson, and says that there are several agents in the running to represent it, CBS News have recently reported.
Since Velden launched the potential digital character career, Tilly Norwood has been the whole conversation in Hollywood.
But not in the right direction. Guilds, actors and filmmakers have met the Xicoia product with an immediate wave of reaction, protesting that artificial intelligence should not have any main role in the profession of actor. In a statement on Tuesday, the Screen Actors Guild said that “creativity was and should stay, centered on man”.
“To be clear,” Tilly Norwood “is not an actor, he is a character generated by a computer program formed on the work of countless professional artists – without authorization or compensation,” said the guild. “He has no experience in drawing life, no emotion and, from what we have seen, the public is not interested in looking at the content generated by computer not linked to human experience.”
The actor Sean Astin, who played in “Lord of the Rings” and “The Goonies”, and was recently elected president of Sag-Aftra, also underlined how AI actors are artificial constructions formed outside work by real performers.
“You are made up of things that don’t belong to you,” he told CBS News. “Just make sure the credit is granted where credit is due.”
Van der Velden, who is also the founder of the Production studio Ai Particul6, promoted Tilly Norwood last month at the Summit in Zurich, the sidebar of the Zurich Film Festival industry. It was there that she said that the talent agencies were running Norwood and that she soon expected to announce a signature.
Many in Hollywood hope it never happens.
“Any talent agency that is committed to this should be boycotted by all guilds,” wrote Natasha Lyonne on Instagram. The star of “Russian Doll” leads a feature film entitled “Uncanny Valley” which undertakes to use the artificial “ethical” intelligence in combination with traditional cinema techniques. “Deeply wrong and totally disturbed,” she added. “Not the path. Not the atmosphere. Not the use.”
Artificial intelligence is often used as a tool in the production of films, although its implementation is strongly debated. It was a major negotiation point in the long strike of SAG-AFTRA which ended at the end of 2023 with certain guarantees set up to protect the use of the resemblances and performance of the actors by the AI. A one -year strike by video game players articulated on AI protections. In July, the video game players approved a new contract which obliges employers to obtain a written authorization to create a digital replica.
But there have been many controversies on the use of AI in the theater. The film Oscar winning in 2024 “The Brutaliste” used artificial intelligence for Hungarian dialogue spoken by the characters of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, whose revelation caused a debate in the industry.
Van der Velden responded to the swing around Tilly Norwood on Instagram.
“For those who expressed the anger of the creation of my IA character, Tilly Norwood, she does not replace a human being, but a creative work – a work of art,” said Van der Velden on Sunday. “Like many art forms before her, she triggers a conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.”
Van der Velden did not respond to interview requests on Tuesday. In her article, she argued that AI characters should be judged as their own genre.
“Creating Tilly was, for me, an act of imagination and know-how, a bit like drawing a character, writing a role or shaping a performance,” she added. “It takes time, skills and iteration to give life to such a character.”
This statement was also shared on the Tilly Norwood Instagram account. The items include photos of the creation of coffee, clothing purchases and the preparation of various projects. On Tuesday, the account had more than 33,000 subscribers.
“Has such an explosion to film screen tests recently,” reads an article. “Each day looks like one more step from the big screen.”
Asked about what human actors bring to a performance that AI cannot, Astin said “authenticity”, adding, “you can fall in love. Your parents can die. You can be in a terrifying situation. The sum of all our emotional experiences in our life, artificial intelligence can the approximate – it is not real.”
