Tilly Norwood: Good, Bad, or Ugly?

 When I was a kid, back in 2002, New Line Cinema came out with a film called S1m0ne, starring Al Pacino as a movie producer whose lead actress walks out on him in the middle of filming his next project. To save the film, he digitally creates an actress to replace her named Simone (short for "Simulation One"), and she becomes an overnight sensation. The film explores the moral ethics of doing such a thing, and what kind of repercussions result in playing God in the digital world.

When I first started hearing about Tilly Norwood, this movie was the first thing that popped up in my memory. I'm sure for some people, they immediately jumped to Black Mirror to draw inspiration for their outrage. Whichever movie you drew inspiration from, the fact is the future is here. 

For those that don't know what I am talking about, allow me to fill you in.

Last year, Particle6 Group, a tech-forward production company from Europe founded in 2015 by Dutch actress and producer Eline Van der Velden, through their advanced A.I. division known as Xicoia, created the very first fully A.I. actress named Tilly Norwood. It started with creating an Instagram account for the actress, where she starred in modeling photos, epic shorts, and selfies. In about 5 months, she garnered over to 50,000 followers.

Now, Van der Velden claims that her intention behind creating Norwood was to find a way to cut production costs for struggling film companies who were handcuffed by small budgets, forcing their films to either be completely gutted on the editing floor, or be cancelled entirely. With Norwood, Van der Velden says production companies can cut their costs by 90%.

However, as the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. 

Her creation and existence has caused massive uproar from the film industry. Many performers have come out against Norwood, and for good reason. Their primary fear, among a myriad of others, is that Norwood, or A.I. in general, would be used to replace actors and actresses in films altogether. Former child star Mara Wilson asked why none of the "hundreds of living young women whose faces were composited together" to create Norwood were hired instead. SAG/AFTRA has stated that they do not consider Norwood to be a real actress. Even Emily Blunt stated that her presence is "really, really scary."

Admittedly, this sounds like the plot of a futuristic horror movie, or the premise to a Black Mirror episode. Let me be incredibly clear here: I do not condone the use of A.I. performers as a means to replace real actors. I mean, I can go into the whole ethics of it, or even go on about how there are some things that computers and technology cannot truly replicate. But ultimately, the idea of replacing real actors with A.I.-generated actors just to cut down on production costs is 100% wrong. As a proud actor myself, I have worked too hard to become the talented actor that I am.

But, I also would like to give Van der Velden the benefit of the doubt. After all, she herself is an actress. So why would she knowingly be behind something created to replace her? That sounds silly. So, it begs the question: what are some ways that we can use Tilly Norwood (and others like her) in a tech-forward, positive way without replacing the hard working human actors? Can the use of A.I. benefit the film industry in any way, or is it just a slippery slope?

If it is true that reducing production costs would help greenlight more projects and create more jobs for people, shouldn't there be some sort of compromise that we can reach? A.I. is certainly not going away any time soon, so why not try and use it to our benefit? Am I wrong?

Let me know what you think in the comments.