Tilly Norwood doesn't exist. She was generated by an AI that studied a bunch of acting talents and spat out a soulless CG approximation of an actress. That hasn't stopped those who stand to benefit from AI being shoved down our throats, claiming that she'll be, "Signed," to a studio, somehow. I mean, cartoons are intellectual property of a studio (Disney with Mickey, copyright expirations aside), so I guess she's sort of an IP that can be owned as she is not real...so why claim she's, "Signed," as if she existed? She is not real; she's AI slop.
Tilly is what happens when a computer takes pieces of other real people and manufactures what it, "Thinks," people want in acting talent. It reminds me of that scene in a movie, "Simone," where Al Pacino creates an actress with a fancy computer and digitally inserts her into movies. He steals bits of other talents to create what he thinks others will consider a great actress. The movie was admittedly mediocre overall, but eerily prescient in its prediction of AI, "Actors/Actresses," despite coming out back in 2002, (when such a thing seemed more like the basis for a science-fiction-ish comedy than possible). SAG-AFTRA obviously is enraged by this threat to flesh-and-blood acting, and others are asking if the tech is really there yet for Norwood to scare or excite others with an actual possibility of her being used in a legit movie. Anything we've actually seen of Norwood looks almost technically impressive, but has that weird fake AI sheen, wooden line delivery, and otherwise literally lacks humanity. I don't think any AI studios actually want her, "Signed," so much as this is all a publicity stunt, an elaborate sham.
I will say, there is some weird lesson to be learned from what an AI gave us when it was requested it create a bland and inoffensive acting talent. It gave us a generic, vaguely pretty, white woman with little acting skill who is still getting major headlines. Somebody could make a meaty PhD thesis out of how much psychological, sociological, and political meaning such an output from the AI holds, I'd wager--and it would be more interesting than the actual creation that is Tilly Norwood, "Herself." We see what the AI companies are doing, trying to shove the tech into our lives in ways we don't need it--and AI does have uses! ChatGPT once scoured the web for me to figure out the title of a movie I could only vaguely recall the details of (an old horror flick called, "Sugar Hill," for those curious), and little pieces of code or shortcut prompts can be made with the assistance of AI. It can be a useful tool just like a hammer or pencil--but nobody has ever called a hammer a carpenter or a pencil an artist--it is the person using the tool we give the credit.
This supposed AI actress is a fraud and little more than computer code--bits and bytes presented as if it were an actual person putting in the work. It isn't garbage in, garbage out, because one assumes tons of useful data is being put in. It's more like, "Humanity in, AI slop out," and until the tech geniuses can give the AI humanity, things will stay that way. Actually, though, don't make the computers self-aware. We don't need a, "HAL 9000," kind of situation.
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