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A new AI "actor" is piquing the interest of talent agents. This spells disaster for cinema.
In an announcement that has received massive backlash across Hollywood, Eline Van der Velden, the Dutch founder of what she calls “the world’s first artificial intelligence talent studio,” told a film festival panel over the weekend that her artificial intelligence “actor” Tilly Norwood has received attention from multiple talent agents. It follows Van der Velden’s statement to Broadcast International over the summer that “We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that’s the aim of what we’re doing.”
But the public isn’t asking for AI entities to replace human actors.
According to Variety, Van der Velden told the panel at the Zurich Film Festival last weekend that “Tilly” was initially met with skepticism in studio boardrooms, but their interest has increased — and that in the coming months she plans to announce who will represent the AI creation. It’s not clear what contributed to the alleged increased interest in Tilly, but one possibility, assuming it’s true, is that the technological sophistication of an AI-generated video by Van der Velden’s AI company released this summer piqued the curiosity of talent agents and film studios.
While Van der Velden’s comments at the festival sounded triumphant, NBC News points out that actors across Hollywood have responded with horror and anger. Actors Emily Blunt, Lukas Gage, Melissa Barrera and Kiersey Clemons, for example, have slammed the AI creation.
“Does it disappoint me? I don’t know how to quite answer it, other than to say how terrifying this is,” Blunt said in an interview in response to the news about Tilly. When Blunt was shown an image of Tilly, Blunt responded with shock. “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” co-host and actor Whoopi Goldberg, one of the rare talents who’s won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony (EGOT), had a different response. She said, “It’s a little bit of an unfair advantage. But you know what? Bring it on. Because you can always tell them from us.”
I don’t share Goldberg’s confidence. The tech is getting so good so quickly — and it’s only going to get better — that it’s conceivable that AI creations could be inserted into movies and shows without some audience members being able to tell they aren’t real.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, seems vigilant about that possibility, and its statement Tuesday catalogs the many ways AI talent is problematic:
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. 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. It doesn’t solve any 'problem' — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.
At least one talent agency came out and said that it refuses to work with “Tilly Norwood.”
Van der Velden has responded defensively to the condemnations. “To those who have expressed anger over the creation of our AI character Tilly Norwood: she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art,” she said. “Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories.”
But Van der Velden’s statement is glib nonsense. She has explicitly pitched Tilly as a replacement for human beings — otherwise why liken her to “the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman”? Why is she fielding talent agents for real actors? What is the value proposition of Tilly Norwood as an “AI actress” if not to resemble a human so much that it could replace a human actor? And what’s in it for film studios and production companies if not replacing humans with a much cheaper alternative?
Using AI technology to replace human actors would not be like depicting a human in a cartoon, which has a clear genre distinction from live-action movies. Nor is it like using puppets or CGI to depict creatures that are clearly understood to not be humans and interact with casts of human actors. The technology, as Blunt’s response suggests, could be imperceptible.
Entrepreneurs and the capitalist class are relentlessly seeking to deploy AI in a manner that exceeds its reasonable use cases in order to maximize profits. This profit motive will incentivize the use of AI “actors.” Even if they aren’t as good, they’ll be cheaper, they won’t unionize, they won’t complain about unfair or unsafe working conditions, they won’t have scheduling conflicts. In other words, there is no obvious limit on their capacity to be exploited.
The artistry of acting stems from a human being transforming into somebody else and drawing from their own experience to tell a story. Actors have different styles and make unique judgment calls based on their bodies, their inner life, their interpretation of screenplays, their organic chemistry with other actors on set — the outcome of how it all comes together will be unpredictable and reflect something specific about all the creators involved. When you replace that with a computer program, there is no craft or magic — only a simulacrum based on the most hollow form of algorithmic mimicry, designed to replace human beings who have ideas and and emotions with a computer program that cannot. We deserve better.
Also:
AI-generated actor sparks outrage in Hollywood as creator seeks representation
Like thousands of actors, Tilly Norwood is looking for a Hollywood agent. Her greatest role? Pretending to be human.
That's because Tilly Norwood is a 100% AI-generated product, created by Dutch producer and comedian Eline Van der Velden, founder of a company named Xicoia, which bills itself as the world's first artificial intelligence talent studio. Velden pitches her AI creation as the next Scarlett Johansson, and says there are several agents vying to represent it, CBS News' Jo Ling Kent reported recently.
Since Velden launched the digital character's prospective career, Tilly Norwood has been all the talk in Hollywood.
But not in a good way. Guilds, actors and filmmakers have met the Xicoia product with an immediate wave of backlash, protesting that artificial intelligence should not have a starring role in the acting profession. In a statement Tuesday, the Screen Actors Guild said that "creativity is, and should remain, human-centered."
"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 guild said. "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."
Actor Sean Astin, who starred in "Lord of the Rings" and "The Goonies," and was recently elected president of SAG-AFTRA, also emphasized how AI actors are artificial constructs trained off of work by real performers.
"You're made up of stuff that doesn't belong to you," he told CBS News. "Let's just make sure that credit is given where credit is due."
Van der Velden, who is also the founder of the AI production studio Particle6, promoted Tilly Norwood last month at the Zurich Summit, the industry sidebar of the Zurich Film Festival. It was there that she said talent agencies were circling Norwood and that she expected to soon announce a signing.
Many in Hollywood hope that never happens.
"Any talent agency that engages in this should be boycotted by all guilds," wrote Natasha Lyonne on Instagram. The "Russian Doll" star is directing a feature titled "Uncanny Valley" that pledges to use "ethical" artificial intelligence in combination with traditional filmmaking techniques. "Deeply misguided & totally disturbed," she added. "Not the way. Not the vibe. Not the use."
Artificial intelligence is often used as a tool in film production, though its implementation is hotly debated. It was a major bargaining point in the lengthy strike by SAG-AFTRA that concluded in late 2023 with some safeguards put in place to protect the use of actors' likenesses and performances by AI. A yearlong strike by video game actors hinged on AI protections. In July, video game actors approved a new contract that mandates employers obtain written permission to create a digital replica.
But there have been numerous controversies over the use of AI in acting. The Oscar-winning 2024 film "The Brutalist" used artificial intelligence for Hungarian dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones' characters, the revelation of which prompted debate in the industry.
Van der Velden responded to the stir around Tilly Norwood on Instagram.
"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," Van der Velden said on Sunday. "Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity."
Van der Velden didn't respond to interview requests Tuesday. In her post, she argued that AI characters should be judged as their own genre. "Creating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftsmanship, not unlike drawing a character, writing a role or shaping a performance," she added. "It takes time, skill and iteration to bring such a character to life."
That statement was also shared on Tilly Norwood's own Instagram account. Posts include photos of the creation drinking coffee, shopping for clothes and preparing for various projects. As of Tuesday, the account had more than 33,000 followers.
"Had such a blast filming some screen tests recently," one post reads. "Every day feels like a step closer to the big screen."
Asked what human actors bring to a performance that AI can't, Astin said "authenticity," adding, "You can fall in love. Your parents can die. You can you can be in some terrifying situation. The sum of all of our emotional experiences in our life, artificial intelligence can approximate it — it is not real."
Also:
AI 'actor' Tilly Norwood provokes outrage from Hollywood's real actors
The SAG-AFTRA actors’ union went on strike in 2023 to earn better minimum compensation and higher residuals from streaming, among other goals. One thing it sought was protection against “the threat of AI,” and that threat is looking more prevalent just two years later.
The AI "talent" studio Xicoia officially launched last weekend at the Zurich Film Festival’s Zurich Summit Conference with the intention of creating AI-generated "talent" for films, TV series, and social media marketing. It started with the AI-generated Tilly Norwood, an "actor" that Xicoia is in the process of signing to a talent agency, according to founder Eline Van der Velden.
SAG-AFTRA was quick to condemn Tilly Norwood, Xicoia, and the idea of replacing real actors with AI-generated fake ones. "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 union said in a statement released Tuesday. "It creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry."
Emily Blunt, who's starring in the upcoming The Smashing Machine, called the situation around Tilly Norwood "terrifying" in an interview with Variety. "Good Lord, we’re screwed," she said. "That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection." Several more actors, like Ralph Ineson, Melissa Barrera, and Nicholas Alexander Chavez, also spoke out against Xicoia's Tilly Norwood.
Van der Velden addressed the backlash even before SAG-AFTRA weighed in. On Sept. 28, she posted on Instagram (through Tilly Norwood's account, no less) a statement saying the AI creation "is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art." She compared AI "actors" to artists' tools, like CG imagery, puppetry, or paintbrushes. Comments on the post were definitely not on Van der Velden's side, with people calling the situation embarrassing and exploitative. "You should release the names of every single individual 'Tilly' was modeled after and they should ALL receive royalties for anything grossed by this AI model," one person wrote.
AI-generated text, images, and now "actors" being trained on the work of real people has been a point of contention across industries as AI has only grown in popularity. Class action lawsuits have been brought against generative AI companies for training their models on people's work without permission. Anthropic AI is paying out $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by authors whose work Anthropic AI used without permission, for example.
It remains to be seen if Xicoia will debut more AI "talent" or if anyone will be willing to sign them, now that so many have spoken out against exactly that.
You can read SAG-AFTRA's statement in full below.
"SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.
"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. 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. It doesn't solve any "problem" — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.
"Additionally, signatory producers should be aware that they may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which generally require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used."