The Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) condemned the creation of actress “Tilly Norwood” through artificial intelligence in a statement Tuesday.
Tilly Norwood was first introduced by Xicoia, the artificial intelligence division of the production company Particle6, in July after being featured in a comedy sketch, “AI Commissioner.”
The company’s founder, Eline Van der Velden, gave a presentation on Norwood at the Zurich Film Festival on Saturday, suggesting movie studios were quietly interested in AI performers.
“When we first launched Tilly, people were like, ‘What’s that?’ And now we’re going to be announcing which agency is going to be representing her in the next few months,” Van der Velden told Variety.
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Her comments received swift backlash from Hollywood performers, prompting a response from the actors union.
“SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics,” the statement read.
“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.”
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SAG-AFTRA also added that synthetic performers cannot be used without complying with the union’s contractual obligations, which require negotiations whenever one is used.
Fox Business reached out to Particle6 for comment.
Before SAG-AFTRA’s statement, Van der Velden responded to the backlash through an Instagram account for Norwood on Sunday.
“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,” she wrote.
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“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.”
The use of AI-generated images in films has become a flashpoint in the entertainment industry over the past few years. Safeguards against artificial intelligence replacing jobs were among the key issues behind the 2023 actors strike.
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