Hollywood Erupts: AI Actor ‘Tilly Norwood’ Sparks Industry Outrage

Hollywood is once again at a flashpoint over artificial intelligence, as the emergence of ‘AI actor’ Tilly Norwood has triggered widespread condemnation from A-list stars and the powerful Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).

Oscar-nominated actress Emily Blunt called the AI creation “terrifying,” echoing sentiments from Natasha Lyonne and Whoopi Goldberg, as Norwood’s Dutch creators promote the synthetic performer, claiming it’s in talks with talent agencies. Tilly Norwood, designed to emulate a ‘girl next door’ persona, features on social media with AI-generated sketches and headshots, prompting its creators to state, “I may be AI, but I’m feeling very real emotions right now.”

However, Hollywood is not welcoming the new technology. SAG-AFTRA issued a stern statement, asserting that Norwood “is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers.” The union further emphasized that AI creations lack “life experience to draw from, no emotion and… audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience.”

The controversy reignites fears that were central to the lengthy 2023 Hollywood strikes, where writers and actors demanded robust protections against AI. SAG-AFTRA reminded agencies and studios that utilizing Norwood could violate contractual safeguards secured after the strikes, warning it “creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”

Actress and filmmaker Natasha Lyonne called for a boycott of any talent agency engaging with Norwood, while Tilly’s creator, Eline Van der Velden, defended the project as “a creative work – a piece of art,” urging it be judged “as part of their own genre” rather than compared to human actors.

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