www.hollywoodreporter.com: You might remember the news that talent agencies were looking to sign the computer-generated “actress” completely blew up Hollywood in September. Norwood, a British 24-year-old created entirely by Van der Velden and her team at production outfit Particle6, was taking flak from entertainment’s top stars.
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So I know the article mainly was focused on the ethics of artificially generated “actors” from the viewpoint of replacing real actors but what I think should be a driver in the conversation right now regarding artificially generated “actors” is the environmental impacts of these artificially generated “actors”. The sheer amount of energy, water, space, matricals, and computing power needed to generate these artificially generated “actors” is absurd. I think the issue so many of us artists are running into with anything artificially generated “art” are that profits are coming before people, creativity, and the environment. It is so frustrating to see companies trying to replace artists in the name of profits with no regard to how they affect the world around them. Climate change is an ever looming threat and this artificially generated “art" is not helping. Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly believe there is a place for AI, I mean predictive models for protein structure is some of the coolest tech ever, but this generated art just isn’t it.
This article was very interesting to me. I am not really sure where I stand on this issue. At first I was fully against AI actors like Tilly Norwood, but now I don’t think I am. The first time that I heard about Tilly Norwood was when I was scrolling on Tik Tok. I was initially really creeped out to know that a computer could look and sound and think like a human. Additionally, one of the largest parts of acting is having that past lived human life experience. Without that, I am not sure how well AI could act. This especially seems like it would be hard for AI to act alongside humans. Also how does AI react to others? Since theatre and film are so collaborative, how do they interact with the directors and stage managers and take instructions from them? I just feel like there are way too many questions to actually implement this technology right now.
Tilly Norewood is not an actor. Tilly Norwood is an AI for the creator - a failed actor, mind you - to live vicariously through and become famous with. It disgusts me to see anything about AI in the creative field. Why is this non-human prompt taking a job in a market that's already so difficult to get a job in? This article pushed me to an even greater extreme of hatred and disapproval for this idea. How is it going to act alongside a human counterpart? Milli Vanilli was absolutely DESTROYED for lip-syncing to music made by someone else. How is this any better? Are AI actors eligible for awards? Who gets the money from the royalties? The creator, or the AI company? Who pays for the water and energy usage? It just doesn't seem feasible or right. It makes me mad to think about it, and the creator does as well. How is she so ignorant of the fact that Tilly Norewood is not the way to get what she wants? All of the drama and criticism isn't going to make her famous again. It's just going to make her hated.
This whole AI actress Tilly Norwood conversation really outraged me, to use the word from the title of this article. I do not think that there is any world in which we would ever have a need for computers to replace actors and acting as a craft. I've been seeing a lot of videos online of people testing out these AI actors and doing mock auditions for them and how they really don't understand the nature of it and how all of their choices are very derivative of the media that they've been trained off of. It is typically very clear to see that they mostly are trained off of YouTube videos and that style of overacting. Personally I have a curiosity to see how far AI actors could go on a purely scientific level, but as an artist I feel as an absolute disgrace to try and say that they have a place in our industry rather than just for pure scientific and technical study.
Reading this article definitely helped explain the position of the creator of Tilly Norwood and it is reassuring that their intention is not to necessarily replace actors in particular roles or in their position as actors, but to instead create a new genre of filmmaking wherein there are universes of AI actors that all work within the same cast within the same movie. While that is a fine line to walk, it should come as a relief hopefully to others and actors that this is not their intention (but who knows how long it will take for another group to actually try to make AI actors to take their jobs). Lastly, one other thing I wanted to discuss was the ethics of replacing an actor with AI in dangerous situations. The creator said that AI could be advantageous for this as we don’t have to endanger children or animals from an ethical standpoint to get particular shots or incorporate this into stories when it would otherwise not be possible. I think the only concern I have with that is if it will encourage us to go farther in particular respects than we would have in the past because we don’t have to worry about any real harm done to individuals in the creation of such art, leading us to make more extreme choices that may be less tasteful in particular respects.
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