I was wondering the other day whether my animosity had ballooned to such an extent that I could call AI “actor” Tilly Norwood my nemesis. But then I decided NO — that honor is reserved exclusively for humans and animals! Still, this computer program with the name of a Bond girl is making my blood boil. I think it has to do with the smugness with which Tilly’s Dr. Frankenstein, former human actress Eline Van der Velden, insists that her Tilly creature is the inevitable future of the industry. First Van der Velden was bragging about how Tilly was about to be signed for representation, and then she foisted that insane music video on us (the one where Tilly rides a flamingo pool toy across the sky, an image I can never unsee). There’s no other way to describe that video than an unholy mash up of revenge, tacky, and ChatGPT. So what fresh hell are we getting now? A movie starring Tilly. Van der Velden and her AI company Particle6 Productions announced their sinister plot on Monday:
The feature film will be a comedy-drama called “Misaligned” and will star Tilly Norwood in a “hybrid production with traditional film and TV professionals — such as directors, writers and editors — working alongside AI specialists, with AI training and mentorship built into the production itself,” the company said.
“Our work this year has proven something we suspected all along,” Van der Velden said in a statement. “AI can support premium narrative filmmaking, but only with substantial amounts of human craft, skill, judgement and time. That’s not a limitation of the technology. That’s the point.”
Tilly Norwood has come under fire from Hollywood, including the actors union SAG-AFTRA, which blasted the studio for “using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”
The union emphasized that Tilly Norwood is “not an actor,” but “a character generated by a computer program.”
“It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience,” the union said.
Particle6 said Monday that for “Misaligned” it plans to work “with leading filmmakers and crew who want to bring their craft into AI production.”
Van der Velden told NBC News Tuesday afternoon that she was not “against AI assisting human creativity at any point.”
She said a hybrid production could include things such as using human actors for motion capture or performance capture and using real filmmakers to combine “the human expertise working together with the AI.”
The movie takes place in the “Tillyverse,” described by the production company as “a surreal digital world located somewhere up in the Cloud.” It will tell “a coming-of-age story infused with existential AI chaos,” Particle6 said.
“The film will absolutely be funny, chaotic and self-aware — very Tilly,” Van der Velden said. “But underneath it, there’s something different about identity, performance, and our very human fears around AI. And yes, art will most definitely be imitating life.”
Merciful heavens, don’t say the “Tillyverse,” there is no such thing! Will no one think of the children!! I was all set to grab my metaphorical pitchfork and go after these professional writers and directors Van der Velden says are involved, but… there aren’t really any yet. Misaligned isn’t even up on IMDb, and other reporting says it’s in very early development, with no key collaborators currently attached. With that in mind, this announcement reads less like a press release and more like an ad for an AI-in-film workshop. “Want to enter the film industry? We’ll train you in AI!” And it’s not like Tilly landed a role, either; this is the equivalent of a wealthy parent buying a film studio so their spoiled kid can feel like an actor.
Oh, and as for the title, Misaligned, I’m sure Van der Velden thinks it’s terribly clever. Last month we covered the genuinely funny human writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s “interview” with Tilly in the NY Times. In that article, Brodesser-Akner outlined that the term “misalignment” refers to when AI misinterprets a prompt. The example she then gave was that the prompt “Tilly, become the best actress in the world,” gets misaligned into Tilly killing Meryl Streep. Har har, so funny I forgot to laugh. I find it very hard to believe this movie can possibly be “self-aware,” because Van der Velden keeps showing us how intensely she is not.
Paying attention Timothy Chalamet?
I believe (or am earnestly hoping) that this’ll be an absolute nothing burger. No one respectable will want anything to do with it, and no one with any interest in cinema or art will pay to watch it. The best they can hope for is a morbius-like meme heaven catastrophe, which as Sony found, is completely unprofitable.
The tech broligarchs continue to manipulate us in so many ways including with language.
IMO it is not enough to use quotes around “actress” or around “star” as that still normalizes the idea that genAI in any form can take the place of human beings. Especially artists.
For consideration and would love to hear from CBers: fakaktress, fakaktar, or just “fac” for facsimile, fac-tress, fac-star.
I don’t think this Tilly character is going places or that it’s going to be big. I can make a character with AI at this point, and so can anyone else. Which makes Tilly less unique than when she first appeared.
What I suspect will eventually happen, is that movies will be replacing all the actors with AI characters. I mean everything else is CGI or at least can be, so what’s stopping them now with AI doing pretty decent job at videos? It’s a win for the studio: not only will they not have to pay actors, these “actors” will have no problems with nudity, being degraded, no need for security, stunt people, intimacy monitoring, nothing. For studios, it’s win-win. And now when actors are not the major cinema draws anymore, why hire them?
I don’t like it, but I think it’s coming.
What was that Writers Strike for