Meet Tilly Norwood: She Isn't Art, She Represents Data.
The threat to human creativity from technology moved a step nearer recently with the appearance of this AI-generated actress, the first 100% AI-generated actor. Predictably, her launch during the Zurich cinematic gathering within a humorous short titled AI Commissioner caused an outcry. The film was called “terrifying” by Emily Blunt and the actors’ union Sag-Aftra condemned it as “threatening artists' careers and cheapening human creativity”.
Many concerns arise with Norwood, especially the signal her “approachable” persona sends to female youth. However, the deeper issue is that her face has been made from those of real actors without their knowledge or consent. Her playful premiere obscures the truth that she embodies an innovative system for producing media that ignores traditional standards and legal frameworks overseeing artists and their creations.
Tinseltown has foreseen Norwood's debut for years. Movies like the 2002 science fiction film Simone, centered on a filmmaker crafting a flawless actress via computer, and 2013’s The Congress, where an aging celebrity undergoes digital replication by her studio, turned out to be incredibly forward-thinking. The recent body horror film The Substance, featuring Demi Moore as a declining famous person who creates a younger replica, similarly satirised the industry’s obsession with youth and beauty. Today, much like Victor Frankenstein, cinema faces its “perfect actress”.
The maker of Norwood, performer and author Eline Van der Velden supported her by saying she is “not taking a human's place”, rather “an artistic creation”, characterizing artificial intelligence as a novel tool, akin to painting equipment. According to its advocates, AI will democratise film, because anyone can produce movies absent a large studio's assets.
Beginning with the printing press to audible movies and TV, each innovative shift has been dreaded and denounced. An Oscar for visual effects wasn't always available, remember. Plus, AI is already integrated into cinema, primarily in cartoon and sci-fi types. Two of last year’s Oscar-winning films – The Brutalist along with Emilia Perez – employed AI to improve vocal qualities. Late actors like Carrie Fisher have been brought back for roles after their passing.
But while some welcome such possibilities, along with the idea of AI performers reducing production expenses drastically, workers in the film industry are justifiably alarmed. The writers' strike of 2023 achieved a halfway success opposing the application of AI. And even as leading celebrities' thoughts on Norwood are well-documented, typically it is the less powerful individuals whose employment is most endangered – background and voice actors, makeup artists and production teams.
AI thespians are a sure result of a world saturated with online trash, surgical enhancements and falsehood. Currently, Norwood cannot perform or engage. She lacks empathy, since, obviously, she isn't human. She is not “artistic” too; she is merely data. The human connection is the true magic of movies, and that is impossible to fabricate artificially. We view movies to observe actual individuals in authentic settings, experiencing genuine feelings. We don't desire flawless atmospheres.
However, although alerts that Norwood poses a wide-eyed danger to cinema may be overblown, currently, anyway, that doesn’t mean there is nothing to fear. Legislation is slow and clunky, whereas technology progresses at a staggering pace. Further measures are needed to defend artists and cinematic staff, and the value of human creativity.
