AI actor causes a real-life scandal

The claim that Tilly Norwood will sign with a talent agency generates a backlash.

- By Wenpy LEE

Particle6 TILLY NORWOOD is an AI creation by Xicoia, launched by Particle6 founder Eline Van der Velden.

Scary. Terrifying. Deeply misguided.

Those were among the visceral reactions this week from Emily Blunt, Whoopi Goldberg, Natasha Lyonne and many other actors and filmmakers over the sudden fame of Tilly Norwood.

Norwood isn’t real — the brunet woman who appears in a comedy sketch on her Instagram page is in fact a computer-generated composite.

“I may be AI, but I’m feeling very real emotions right now,” states a message on Norwood’s Instagram page. “I am so excited for what’s coming next!”

The sentiment was not widely shared, at least in Hollywood, where anxieties about the use and abuse of artificial intelligence replacing actors run deep.

Norwood’s creator ignited a furor after she announced that the digital actor would soon be signed by a talent agency.

This week, SAG-AFTRA weighed in with a withering response, dismissing Norwood as a “character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers.”

Two years ago, the union’s members engaged in a 118-day strike to fight for more AI protections in their contracts with major studios.

“They are taking our professional members’ work that has been created, sometimes over generations, without permission, without compensation and without acknowledgment, building something new,” SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said in an interview.