NEW YORK (AP) — Like thousands of actors, Tilly Norwood is looking for a Hollywood agent.
But unlike most young performers aspiring to make it in the film industry, Tilly Norwood is an entirely artificial intelligence-made character. Norwood, dubbed Hollywood's first “AI actor,” is the product of a company named Xicoia, which bills itself as the world's first artificial intelligence talent studio.
Since the Dutch producer and comedian Eline Van der Velden launched the digital character's prospective career, Tilly Norwood has been all the talk in Hollywood.
But not always 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.”
Van der Velden, founder of the AI production studio Particle6, last weekend promoted Tilly Norwood at the Zurich Summit, the industry sidebar of the Zurich Film Festival. She said then that talent agencies were circling Norwood and that she expected to soon announce a signing.
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.”