Hollywood stars are speaking out in protest after an “AI actress” named Tilly Norwood attracted agency interest.
Norwood is an entirely virtual creation owned by Xicoia, a talent studio attached to the AI production company Particle6.
Deadline reported yesterday that several Hollywood talent agents are interested in signing Norwood.
What about all the stuntmen that lost their jobs with CG stunts?
Or the Hollywood accountants put out of work by Excel, or the film processing and printing technicians put out of work by digital cameras, the cel animators put out of work by various digital alternatives, and so forth.
Technology changes and the jobs available change with it. Looks like many actors are soon going to join the ranks of the lamplighters and buggy whip manufacturers. I don’t see why their profession should get protections and exemptions from this process that nobody else gets.
To me it’s not even about jobs. It’s about the interest in the art… why the fuck would I care about a script written by AI and acted by AI? What’s even the point?
If everything is artificially generated to be mildly pleasing, just fucking electrically stimulate my dopamine receptors directly, what’s even the goal here? See a few pixels move on my screen?
The whole humanity thing was work to survive so we can make the things only humans can make: wonders, art, tell stories, play sports… why would I give a shit about a computer’s interpretation of that?
why the fuck would I care about a script written by AI and acted by AI? What’s even the point?
Is it good?
That’s really all I care about at the end of the day. When I watch a TV show I’ve never really cared who the scriptwriter was or what their personal history or intent behind the story whatever. I just watch the show, and if it’s a good story I enjoy it.
I know AI’s not well liked in these parts and a lot of people are of the opinion that AI writing can never be “good.” If that is indeed the case then there’s no risk of writers losing jobs to it.
The whole humanity thing was work to survive so we can make the things only humans can make: wonders, art, tell stories
But what if it turns out that things other than humans can make those things?
It used to be a commonly-repeated argument that no computer would ever best a human grandmaster at chess. Or a top-ranked go player. CGI actors would never be indistinguishable from the real thing. And, recently, that AI couldn’t depict plausible hands. I wouldn’t be so confident that AI can’t tell good stories at some point soon.
Is it good?
That’s really all I care about at the end of the day. When I watch a TV show I’ve never really cared who the scriptwriter was or what their personal history or intent behind the story whatever. I just watch the show, and if it’s a good story I enjoy it.
You people would watch The Matrix and side with the villains, that’s bizarre. I have a toy soldier with more soul than what you just displayed.
If that is indeed the case then there’s no risk of writers losing jobs to it.
In what fairy tale universe do you live where bad things aren’t forced upon people via market pressures?
But what if it turns out that things other than humans can make those things?
They can (copying massive amounts of actually human made content, of course) but that’s completely irrelevant to the point. I don’t care if they can do it or not, I’m not their creator.
It used to be a commonly-repeated argument that no computer would ever best a human grandmaster at chess.
And guess what, I watch people compete when playing chess, even if they are not as good as the chess engines. People watch people playing chess, not two smartphones side by side on a table with StockFish running.
I wouldn’t be so confident that AI can’t tell good stories at some point soon.
They can write a 10 hour movie and I still wouldn’t give a shit about what an AI is got to say.
You people would watch The Matrix and side with the villains, that’s bizarre.
Who’s “you people”?
Also, did you watch the Matrix? The villains were not clear cut. There were machines who were sympathetic to humanity and humans who were traitors, and they had complex motivations. The Animatrix made it clear that humans were the villains in the original war between humans and machines, and in the most recent movie of the series we see that at least some factions of human and machine were holding to the peace treaty that Neo negotiated and are living in harmony. The situation in the Matrix is complicated.
Unless you just watch it for the cool kung-fu and bullet time, and don’t pay attention to the writing. In which case I guess I see why you’d think my criterion of “is the writing good?” Is irrelevant.
Who’s “you people”?
You.
Also, did you watch the Matrix? The villains were not clear cut. There were machines who were sympathetic to humanity and humans who were traitors
I was specifically making allusion to Cypher’s steak scene, but I should’ve suspected you wouldn’t understand how that was meant to be interpreted given you agree with the villain. Sorry for not being clear enough.
In which case I guess I see why you’d think my criterion of “is the writing good?” Is irrelevant.
Says the guy who just commented how you just consume the content and never makes a hint of effort to understand the purpose behind the writing, whilst defending AI scripts.
Who’s “you people”?
You.
You don’t know me.
I was specifically making allusion to Cypher’s steak scene, but I should’ve suspected you wouldn’t understand how that was meant to be interpreted given you agree with the villain.
He’s literally who I was thinking of when I said there were “humans who were traitors.”
Again, you’ve got a weirdly black and white view about a movie that was written to have a complex moral landscape and ambiguous characters. I think you missed out on a great deal of the movie’s meaning and intent.
Says the guy who just commented how you just consume the content and never makes a hint of effort to understand the purpose behind the writing, whilst defending AI scripts.
Ah, irony.
So people who only got overpaid because of the way they look are upset about being undercut by something because of the way it looks?
Putting a living person in hotel reverie is just too dangerous
Does it creep anyone else out that the first “AI actress” they’re trying to sell is a very young woman? It could’ve been literally anyone else. This is a character who can’t say no, can’t lay down boundaries, can’t say something is unrealistic. If they want to show her flying on Epstein’s private plane or getting shot at school, there’s nothing to stop them.
She also can’t physically interact with a real person.
Go browse image generation models up for download on https://civitai.com/. Even when you’re not signed in, almost all the models are advertised with generated images of young looking women. And if you create an account and turn on not safe for work, it gets even worse because everything then becomes highly pornographic, because that’s what people use the models for primarily.
That is what 95% of image/video generation is used for, creating porn for mostly young looking women.
So it makes sense that’s what they’re trying to sell here, not saying it’s right or moral. Feeling creeped out is probably an appropriate response for many people
For me, I don’t really care. Sex sells, that’s how it’s always been and will continue to be into the future.
Long term I do think it’s an improvement, there will always be a demand for porn so creating it virtually without economically coercing young women to do it is “harm reduction”. In the future with VR and cyberdildonics it might even make prostitution / sex work mostly obsolete.
Ai is really only good at creating young women because that’s what 90% of headshots online are
Oh sweet child, don’t let anyone ever tell you about fan fiction.
I mean, obviously yeah there’s that but this isn’t fan fiction. Quite the opposite in fact.
Hater fact?
Does it creep anyone else out that the first “AI actress” they’re trying to sell is a very young woman?
Watching “The Substance” and thinking that it would be better as a Black Mirror episode.
This is a character who can’t say no, can’t lay down boundaries, can’t say something is unrealistic.
In fairness, if we took every pedophile on earth and slapped a GACHA game in front of them to occupy their horny energies indefinitely? I wouldn’t hate the idea of alienating and commoditizing this particular corner of the population.
At the same time, there’s definitely a Pete Hegseth tier mental disorder that comes out of being perpetually surrounded by women who can’t/won’t say no. Eventually, you’re going to have people who immerse themselves in this video game put the device down and try to interact with the real world on the same terms.
Young + attractive + female = talented
This doesn’t seem like something that benefits the majority of people.
If it was like “here’s free (or at least legitimately cheap) access to some virtual actors. Go make the movie of your dreams, kids!” maybe that would be cool. Maybe there are people out there with brilliant ideas that are blocked by not having real actors to act for them. Maybe.
But this just seems like another way for the rich to keep more wealth for themselves.
That last sentence alone has described the entire American business sector for the past 10 years or so
You can already hire dirt cheap nobody actors for your indie passion project by putting up a poster near any college with a liberal arts program. Or use a website. Hell, there are even carve outs to stay full union.
But if you have money to make a “real” movie? You have money to pay talent.
But this just seems like another way for the rich to keep more wealth for themselves.
Yup. Insert AlwaysHasBeen.meme here.
If this agency normalizes AI actors for the big movie theatres it’ll help the smaller ones too, IMO.
It’s already happening that people are using AI to make the movies of their dreams (well, short form video, at any rate - The Adventures of Reemo Green is a recent example that comes to mind, I would dearly love to see a TV series of this guy). They don’t need to use an AI actor agency, but they do have to face the “ew, AI!” Reaction to their work. If the big studios start doing it that’ll make things easier for them.
Seems like it could be like music production software becoming widely available. Now you don’t need to get a drummer, a bass player etc. Together to make music, you can just make it at home on your computer. It enables lower level people to get off the ground as they now have the tools that the pros do, you want a saxophone but don’t know anyone in town who can play or can’t afford one, just use a synth that sounds like one. Once you get signed though and you have a label giving you studio time you might hire an actual saxophone player because it sounds better.
Same with movies, AI could be helpful in making small low/no budget indie movies, but I don’t think it’s at the same quality as real actors for big budget movies where people expect more, so maybe the wealthy studio execs won’t benefit from it much right now.
Also acting (among other creative fields) is where you see most of the actual rags to riches stories, and the bourgeoisie really wants to kick the remaining ladders behind them.
What does this even mean? You can’t put other actors on screen with it. The only movies you could make would be garbage like Ice Cube’s War of the Worlds.
Just need a “green man” and it’d be no different than CGI…
Sure they can. There have been animated characters next to live characters for decades.
Nah-uh! Gamma rays just has that effect on real genuine human persons.
No AI star got any “agency interest” these headlines are purposelly crafted to create the impression that there was interest. This is free publicity for an AI avatar nobody gives a shit about.
I don’t see a problem. Mickey Mouse isn’t a real mouse either.
Mickey Mouse is at least animated by real humans. They are in a way the actors that create the performance.
While it’s stupid as fuck, paying an actor millions to play pretend is just as dumb.
Norwood is an entirely virtual creation owned by Xicoia
Current US law has been reluctant to allow copyright for AI generated works. At least until this industry throws gobs of cash at Congress and a motor coach at scotus.
So what’s to stop somebody from recreating “Tilly” for their own use?
Even if the AI output itself is public domain, you can trademark the characters involved and you can copyright the work that the output is a part of. This isn’t likely to be a big obstacle. If I generate an image of Mario, for example, the fine folks at Nintendo can still get on my case about it. And if I’m making a movie and the Mona Lisa comes into shot the movie remains my IP regardless.
Eventually it’s gonna happen.
We’re not there yet, and we’ll start seeing it from the bottom up when it actually happens.
It’s already used for crowds, next is extras walking down the street, then once it gets to speaking lines the stars will have to worry. The won’t be replaced till last, but eventually making a movie won’t involve a single camera.
We’re not there yet, but its prettty decent already for amateurs or low-stakes proffesionals. Like this
Influencers using horizontal video? Pft. So unrealistic.
We might actually get a proper indie scene. AI is going to pull us out of the Hollywood bullshit era.
Soulless marvel character showcases disguised as feature films won’t cut it anymore.
Soulless marvel character showcases disguised as feature films won’t cut it anymore.
I already don’t believe it should cut it, but the masses are the stupid masses.
We might actually get a proper indie scene. AI is going to pull us out of the Hollywood bullshit era.
And how do you propose this would happen?
If anybody can build a scene in blender with some rough models and untextured puppets, then generate over that into something that looks like movie quality, the studios just lost their whole industry.
They have a monopoly because of the costs associated, AI destroys those costs essentially. It’s also the main reason why these “talent agencies” will fail, AI actors are going to be a dime a dozen.
It’s being used by the government to fake the president. If it can fool the dumb country bumpkins it can be used in Hollywood. Future media is gonna be lifeless and uncanny.
Are you implying that the bearded belly dancer on the beaches of the golden Trump Riviera was AI?
Everything about this “news” story would have been easy for Tilly’s to orchestrate as publicity for their projects
Honestly I think it might be best to simply ban AI actors looking like humans.
I fear it may cause even more unrealistic standards than having almost perfect actors, and people may feel even less as part of a society than they do now.I can see how it can be practical and cheaper and all that, but if the depiction of humans stop to be actual human, I think we may be walking into a whole new set of problems in the future.
CGI actors, too.
And stunt men, if you’re going to depict a famous actor doing something dangerous it’s false advertising to have someone else doing it for him.
We should probably ban makeup as well.
Yeah, how is Harvey Weinstein supposed to molest an AI?
The real Turing test
VR headset and a fleshlight.
Considering what his allegedly looks like, maybe he should’ve washed his toys more —or, at all. 🤢
Won’t anybody think of the children?
After only a second of thought, AI child actors seems like an alternative to exploiting real children, but im sure thats being generous and theres a million reasons why it would suck
Calling it now: literally only gooners will be interested in this character, no one else will care
Check youtube shorts. Videos have filters now to make them look like AI. Kids on youtube are already brainwashed into thinking AI is fun. AI actors and models are like any other product. If you hype it enough kids will love it.
What are the filters to make it look like AI? I’m not sure what that means. When I hear “looks like AI”, I imagine “has 7 fingers per hand, inconsistent art styles, and has really weird things when you look closely at the details”
Hmm…I didn’t downvote you, but I don’t think that’s designed to look like AI. I’m not well-versed enough in film to suggest what look they are going for though.
Of course it is designed to look like AI.
The lighting, the colors, blurred background, unnaturally smooth skin, the weird shine.