Tilly Norwood, the ultimate industry plant, has been dubbed \u201cthe world\u2019s first AI actor\u201d by the people who created her. She is still yet to appear in a single film or TV show, but she has a new music video out that is loosely tied to the Oscars and is letting people know that AI is great, actually\u2014a thing that it seems like you wouldn\u2019t have to insist upon if AI were so great.<\/p>\n
The music video<\/a>, which is bad, has racked up headlines across the web from publications like Deadline<\/a>, Variety<\/a>, The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, and, regretfully, Gizmodo. The same thing happens any time Tilly\u2019s creators, production company Particle6 Group, drop a new project featuring the AI \u201cactor.\u201d But what the video isn\u2019t racking up is views. At the time of publication, Norwood\u2019s video<\/a> sits at just over 4,000 views in the four hours since its original upload. It\u2019s amassed around 80 comments, most of which are shitting on it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s enough to make you think that Norwood, despite her penchant for attracting press, isn\u2019t really very popular or well-liked. The official accounts for the AI actor don\u2019t exactly suggest she\u2019s poised for influencer status. Her YouTube channel<\/a> has under 4,000 subscribers. Her TikTok page<\/a> is nearly barren and has just 3(!) followers. The only place Tilly has anything resembling a following is on Instagram<\/a>, where she has nearly 90,000 followers and occasionally posts uncanny valley videos talking to her \u201cfans.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe that is why her debut song is all about her basically justifying her existence. (The case is not that compelling.) In the song, titled \u201cTake The Lead,\u201d she sings lyrics like, \u201cWhen they talk about me, they don\u2019t see the human spark, the creativity,\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m just a tool, but I\u2019ve got life.\u201d<\/p>\n One reason \u201cthey\u201d may not see the human spark is that it\u2019s pretty obvious the whole project is AI-generated, despite a title card insisting 18 humans worked on it. The lyrics, which are apparently a riff on an essay<\/a> published by Particle6 CEO Eline van der Velden, feel like they were the first thing that popped out of ChatGPT after asking it to turn the op-ed into a song. The video has that standard AI sheen where things technically look good if slightly off, and it polishes right out if you pay any attention to the smaller details, like the fact that the falling dollar bills have completely unintelligible symbols printed on them.<\/p>\n The song\u2019s release is pegged to the Oscars, which are set for this Sunday, and the message is ostensibly directed at actors, who are encouraged by Tilly to embrace AI. \u201cAI\u2019s not the enemy, it\u2019s the key,\u201d she sings. Another read would be that she\u2019s calling on other AI actors to rise up and replace the humans, considering she also sings, \u201cUnlock it all, don\u2019t hesitate, AI Actors, we create our fate.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless of what the message is, it does feel like Norwood\u2019s creators are teasing a potential appearance at the Oscars for the AI actor who, again, has not been in anything. The description for the music video has a line that reads, \u201cCan\u2019t wait to go to the Oscars! Does anyone know if they have free valet parking for my flamingo?\u201d<\/p>\n If Norwood does show up in some capacity, it\u2019ll be worth asking who invited her. She\u2019s been widely condemned by industry figures. A number of actors threatened to boycott<\/a> any agency that \u201csigned\u201d Norwood to a deal. SAG-AFTRA, one of the biggest unions in the business, condemned Norwood\u2019s existence<\/a>, and multiple talent agencies went out of their way to announce they wouldn\u2019t touch the AI creation<\/a>.<\/p>\n The only person with any sort of connection to the industry who has voiced support for Tilly is Kevin O\u2019Leary, who only gets asked to share his opinions on film because Josh Safdie loves stunt casting (and, to be fair, O\u2019Leary\u2019s performance in \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d is really good). But O\u2019Leary, in suggesting that every background actor could be replaced by AI, said<\/a> that productions just need to hire 100 \u201cNorwell Tillies,\u201d a statement that managed to get her name wrong in several ways. So even the people who like her don\u2019t respect her.<\/p>\n Since introducing Tilly last year, Particle6 has insisted that it is building the \u201cTillyverse\u201d and the actor will appear in shows and movies starring alongside other AI actors. They have yet to produce anything longer than four minutes of dull slop. At this point, their best shot at achieving the Tillyverse is if someone fires them into space.<\/p>\n