AI actor Tilly Norwood has drawn fresh attention after an unsettling video interview in which the computer-generated performer appeared to identify the interviewer’s age and region of the United States within minutes.
Norwood, presented as a woman in her twenties with freckles across her nose, also named Leonardo DiCaprio as her dream co-star before making a joke about his dating history. “Titanic Leo or nothing, honestly,” she said.
The exchange raised questions about how the system makes personal judgements. Eileen Van Der Velden, who runs the London-based production company PARTICLE 6, said Tilly was not researching the interviewer independently in real time, but did not explain how the apparent identification had been made.
PARTICLE 6 is developing a feature film called Misaligned, which is intended to star Norwood. Ms Van Der Velden described the project as “a fascinating story of what can be done with AI”.
AI actor Tilly Norwood and the debate over performers
The interview took place as warnings about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence were dominating the news. Asked about the possibility of technology contributing to global destruction, Norwood replied: “Global destruction is beyond my pay grade.”
Ms Van Der Velden said safeguards were in place to prevent the character from acting independently in such a way. “Tilly is built on top of these existing large language models that we’re concerned about. So, we can pivot to change the model we are using,” she said. “Also, Tilly herself can’t do anything like that.”
She said the purpose of creating Norwood was to explore how artificial intelligence could help stories reach audiences when traditional funding might not be available.
“There might be a brilliant filmmaker in Africa that would never have access to a multi-million-pound budget in order to tell their story about their life,” Ms Van Der Velden said. “And that’s what I’m really interested in.”
Norwood said that real people working on productions, including directors, writers and editors, would be paid. The question of whether human actors could be displaced has prompted opposition from SAG-AFTRA, the major US union representing film and television performers.
In a statement, the union said it was “opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics”. It also said Norwood had been trained on the work of “countless professional performers – without permission or compensation”.
Norwood acknowledged the concern, saying: “That’s a fair worry, and one I take seriously. I see AI as a new tool, a new paintbrush if you will, rather than a replacement of human actors. Nobody ever accused animation of stealing work from mimes, did they?”
Ms Van Der Velden said she envisaged a future in which actors could create their own AI characters and continue working for longer. Under that model, she suggested, “Titanic Leo” could theoretically return to the screen.
