SAG-AFTRA Pushes Back on Controversial AI Actress Tilly Norwood: ‘No Emotion, No Human Experience’

SAG-AFTRA is cracking down on the latest controversial development in AI. Tilly Norwood is an up-and-coming actress who’s supposedly seeking Hollywood representation. However, Tilly Norwood isn’t a real person. She is an AI-generated creation created by Xicoia, the AI division of Particle6. She has already appeared in various social media projects, but now there’s a possibility that she could be cast in an actual movie or TV show. However, SAG-AFTRA has some sharply worded things to say about that. They didn't hold back on the criticism.

SAG-AFTRA’s Statement on Tilly Norwood

SAG-AFTRA, which represents over 160,000 actors, journalists, and other media professionals, issued a statement about Tilly Norwood and the use of AI to create actors, or as they called AI actors, “synthetic performers.” They stated that, “SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics. ” They went on to tear down the AI actress further, stating,

“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. 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. It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry."

That is a pretty brutal takedown. SAG-AFTRA makes its stance pretty clear. There isn't any room for debate or an acknowledgment that this could be the medium of the future. It is a straight up no from the organization.

We Can, but Does That Mean We Should?

Xicoia wants to create a whole personality for Tilly Norwood, to the point where she even has an Instagram account. The use of AI in Hollywood has already been the subject of extreme controversy, to the point where there was a writer’s strike in 2023. Since then, AI has been utilized to generate or enhance imagery and sound in movies like The Brutalist and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. However, AI enhancements differ dramatically from casting a full AI “actor” in a movie.

Human actors work countless hours to find their characters. They study the script, gain weight, lose weight, train for weeks, learn new skills, and sometimes even suffer injuries during filming. They imagine themselves in their characters’ extraordinary situations. An AI has no soul, and as such it can only imitate. Perhaps one of the scariest aspects of AI is that we seem all-too eager to hand our creativity and insight over to machines instead of working on our craft.

Final Thoughts

Watching a great actor’s performance gives us a glimpse into both the actor’s soul and the screenwriter’s soul. Creativity is one of the most essential elements of what makes us human. While it might be amusing to watch Tilly Norwood and ooh and aah over how realistic she looks, how long will it be before movie and TV studios decide that they don’t need actors? As AI advances at a rapid pace, it would do us well to remember what SAG-AFTRA said in their statement. Do we really want machines to replace our human creativity?

What do you think? Is this the next evolution of film, or something that is a threat to the industry? Do you consider Tilly Norwood an acress or not? Let us know in the comments!

This article first appeared on Total Apex Entertainment