I first noticed Joseph Gordon-Levitt when he was a baby-faced tweenager on 3rd Rock From the Sun, completely holding his own alongside French Stewart, Kristen Johnson, and John Freaking Lithgow. (That is actually John’s full name, look it up.) JGL has built such an interesting filmography, has good politics, and keeps his personal life personal… it’s amazing to think he was a child actor. Just goes to show (business) you that it is possible to do right by kids in Hollywood! And here’s an umpteenth reason to love him: JGL is a UN Global Advocate for Human-centric Digital Governance. He’s been talking about the human-digital intersection for a while — take it from the listed interests on his Joe’s Journal Substack: “media technology, creativity, the end of civilization as we know it, credible reasons for optimism, etc…” And speaking of one of those topics, I find it extremely alarming that “Human-centric” has to be specified, but here we are. Along those lines, JGL was recently asked if AI can be creative. His answer was essentially no, it can’t, and also included an effortless takedown of AI “actor” Tilly Norwood.
American actor and UN Global Advocate for Human-centric Digital Governance Joseph Gordon-Levitt has made it clear that he does not consider the world’s first AI-generated ‘actor’ Tilly Norwood to be an actor at all.
In a video posted to his Instagram account on Thursday, Gordon-Levitt called Norwood a “piece of software that’s being branded as an actress”.
He appeared to be responding to a question on whether AI could be creative. He said it was important to remember that “AI is not a person”.
“AI, as we know it, is an algorithmic recombination of human inputs. It’s taken everything that everyone’s written, all the films, all the songs, everything on the internet… And then a very sophisticated and expensive to run algorithm has recombined all those inputs to generate these new outputs.”
That, the actor said, meant “an output that’s branded Tilly Norwood is not an actress”.
Gordon-Levitt said there had to be a person to deliver a performance, like how nobody would say a cartoon character like Donald Duck performed well.
“You say that Donald Duck is an animated character that was created by a number of different artists, writers, animators, voice actors, etc. And all of those artists are given credit for creating Donald Duck. The product known as Tilly Norwood is no different.”
Gordon-Levitt is far from the first person to differentiate Norwood from an actual actor, with the bot’s own creator, Eline Van der Velden, insisting last year the bot was “a work of art” rather than an artist.
That was after her initial comments saying she wanted “Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman” drew the ire of celebrities such as Scream’s Melissa Barrera and Mara Wilson, who played the lead in Matilda in 1996.
More recently, Norwood appeared for an ‘audition’ on CNN and blew it entirely, with the team behind the bot having to perform hours of work just to get it to act out a single scene.
“A piece of software that’s being branded as an actress” is the perfect way to describe the pixels referred to as Tilly Norwood. It’s worth watching JGL’s video on Instagram, where there’s a bit more to his answers than what the article transcribed. For instance, he doesn’t merely note that AI has taken everything from the internet, he makes a point of adding that AI companies have done that without consent or compensation to the human creators. And yes it’s expensive to run, in terms of money and the environmental cost. I appreciate how clearly JGL spells out that AI can’t do anything on its own — it has to be exposed to human-made work. So… why don’t we just stick to human-made work??!!
As for the Donald Duck comparison, I must admit I’m conflicted. I totally agree that no one says “Donald Duck performed well,” but that’s because Donald Duck is a hack whose lone schtick is the wheezy, raspy voice of a malfunctioning cassette tape. But swap in Daffy, a superior duck (in terms of character development), then I have a much harder time equating him to Tilly! I think it again goes back to the issue of AI being built on stolen goods. Yes, there’s a team of people working the prompts to get Tilly to “act” (and I did watch that CNN audition; it really lives down to expectations, though at least Tilly didn’t glitch into Cantonese). The work of Looney Tunes, however, is a human collaboration that explores the human condition! Through animals, but still! I just can’t co-sign granting Tilly Norwood the same status as Daffy, let alone my beloved Bugs Bunny. Does that make me the looney one? (Don’t answer that.)
Photos credit: Gonzalo Marroquin/Getty Images for Netflix
JGL is absolutely correct.
I’ve just clicked on that CNN “audition” clip,and that Eline Van Der Velden woman sounds like a villainous mad scientist!
Agreed. The fact that her creator is trying this mess is insane.
I think that summarises it pretty well.
Thank you, JGL. Let’s hear from more actors!!
I really appreciate his words on this. Statements like Demi Moore’s “antiness breeds antiness” are really disappointing and dumb.
I will only ever refer to AI as “it”, because that’s what it is. As ever, a good take by JGL.