Despite defects in its code, which cause its language to switch between English and Cantonese for no apparent reason, “AI actor” Tilly Norwood is still being trotted out before human eyes as an example of what the future of filmmaking with AI will look like. Returning to the Zurich Film Festival a year after debuting the bot there, creator Eline van der Velden (per Variety) presented Norwood during a Q&A, saying that the response to it exceeded even her “wildest dreams.” “It’s such an odd conundrum, the sort of negativity and then the positivity at the same time,” van der Velden said. “At [AI production studio] Particle 6, we’ve grown eight-fold. We have four departments; we’re big in AI advertising, film, and TV; we’re doing a lot of co-productions and original commissions. We do a lot of AI consultancy, bringing AI workflows into other studios and production companies.” Which is all dynamite, everyone in attendance was surely thinking, but what does the bot have to say?
“A lot of people have realized that AI is coming, and that was the point of Tilly […] I built her as a physicist actress; I felt like I needed to bridge the gap in communication between the tech and the entertainment industry,” Van der Velden, who is working with The Lion King director Rob Minkoff on a hybrid production called Snow Dogs, continued. “As opposed to writing a boring white paper about what was happening with AI, I thought: Let’s create something to show people that will engage them and make them sit up and take action so that the creative industry can stay ahead as opposed to being completely and utterly taken over by the tech industry.” Yes, we’re sure we don’t know what “physicist actress” means, the crowd collectively thought at van der Velden. But can we watch the bot go beep and boop now?
Perhaps sensing the growing anxiety in the air, van der Velden reportedly struggled with an HDMI cable (finally! Something to relate to) until Norwo0d finally appeared on screen to field questions from the audience. One hardball query put to the bot was which human actor it would like to work with one day, as though any sensible working actor would ever risk doing a Roger Rabbit with it. N0rwood’s choices: Tom Holland and Olivia Colman. “But only if it were their digital twins joining me in an AI production,” it clarified. As for the reception it’s received from living people with eyeballs, the Norw00d emotional receptors registered a neutral yet vaguely condescending response. “My name kind of went everywhere. It’s funny. Nobody hated me particularly; they just sort of hated the future.” Norwood’s creator also pondered this irrational outcry within the filmmaking industry over the progress of AI, which is certainly nothing for our mortal brains to worry about. “What saddens me about that is that it means that the traditional industry can’t participate in this new tech and that means they fall behind,” she said. “Is it a positive? Is it a negative?”
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