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AI Actress Tilly Norwood draws backlash from Hollywood
Norwood is the first creation to emerge from recently launched AI talent studio Xicoia.
LOS ANGELES - The creator of an AI-generated actress is responding to major backlash from Hollywood celebrities after saying Tilly Norwood has already caught the attention of several talent agents.
Tilly Norwood's ‘creator’ responds
What they're saying:
"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. Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity," Eline Van der Velden wrote in a statement on Instagram, also posted on Norwood’s own Instagram page.
"I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a new paintbrush. Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories. I’m an actor myself, and nothing – certainly not an AI character – can take away the craft or joy of human performance."
Multiple talent agents interested in representing her
The backstory:
Norwood is the first creation from AI talent studio Xicoia, a spin-off from Van der Velden's AI production studio Particle6, Variety reports.
During the Zurich Summit over the weekend, Van der Velden said an announcement would be made over which talent agency would be representing Norwood in the coming months.
Hollywood slams Norwood
The other side:
Critics worry Norwood could replace human actors and actresses.
SAG-AFTRA issued a statement that read in part, "SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics," the guild said in a statement.
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"Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a$$. How gross, read the room," "Scream" actress Melissa Barrera wrote on Instagram.
"Not an actress actually," "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" actor Nicholas Alexander Chavez said. "Nice try."
"Movies are great but you know what would be better is if the characters in them weren’t played by actual humans but by AI replicas approximating human emotion," "Shang Chi" actor Simu Liu said on his Instagram.
"Pretty telling that the industries first venture into this was to create a teenage girl they could control," screenwriter Brian Duffield said on X.
"Maltilda" actress Mara Wilson added: "What about the hundreds of living young women whose faces were composited together to make her? You couldn’t hire any of them?"
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"She was a nightmare to work with," actor Lukas Gage wrote, poking fun at the situation.
"Does it disappoint me? I don’t know how to quite answer it, other than to say how terrifying this is," Blunt, the 42-year-old Oscar-nominated actress, told Variety on Sept. 30 when she was first made aware of Norwood's existence. When she was shown an AI-generated image of Norwood, Blunt said, "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."
As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 33,000 people follow Norwood's public Instagram account.
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The Source: The information in this report is sourced from public statements made by Eline Van der Velden on Instagram, as well as comments from various actors and screenwriters on their personal social media accounts. We also use details about the project's development and its creator's background from a report by "Variety."