Hollywood’s largest union became the latest in the industry to raise the alarm on the prospect of talent agencies signing a new “actress” created with artificial intelligence (AI).
In a strongly worded statement on Sept. 30, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) said the AI creation poses several problems for actors.
“SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered,” the online statement said. “The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.”
“Tilly Norwood” was introduced in July in a video teaser by Particle6 Productions, a London-based company that produces AI-generated commercials and films. The avatar’s creator Eline van der Velden, a Dutch comedian and technologist, announced that the company was seeking a talent agent during the Zurich Film Festival on Sept. 27.
Multiple Hollywood celebrities immediately reacted against the prospect of that creation getting representation.
SAG-AFTRA, which represents about 160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, and others in the entertainment industry, detailed the union’s concerns.
“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 union stated. “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.”
Instead of being a solution, AI characters create the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work and devalue human artistry, SAG-AFTRA said.
The union also warned producers that they “may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used.”
The AI company responded to Hollywood’s outrage this week.
“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 in a statement shared with The Epoch Times. “Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.”
Van der Velden said she sees AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool or paintbrush.
The SAG-AFTRA logo is displayed outside of its National Headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard during the actors strike in Los Angeles on Oct. 24, 2023. The union opposes the AI avatar "Tilly Norwood" after claims that the "access" was seeking talent representation. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
“Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories,” she said. “I’m an actor myself, and nothing—certainly not an AI character—can take away the craft or joy of human performance.”
According to van der Velden, creating Tilly Norwood was “an act of imagination and craftsmanship.”
The creator said during her film festival announcement that she expected Norwood to get representation in the coming months.
Norwood’s creators also operate a webpage, Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok accounts. The AI creation has nearly 39,000 followers on Instagram and a few dozen on TikTok.
On Sept. 28, the day after the Zurich festival announcement, actress Abigail Breslin called for a boycott of Tilly Norwood.
“I beg every actor I know to [please] boycott this,” she wrote on Instagram. “If your agency is trying to sign an AI actor, you should leave them.”
Breslin said she viewed the “female AI actress” as a way for “men to control and narrate the female experience.”
