If you’re not already familiar with the concept known as “Tilly Norwood,” she is an AI-generated representation of a person, and in marketing materials, she is vaguely treated as a celebrity who can sing and act, when, in fact, she is nothing more than a high-tech version of someone’s doodle of a beautiful lady.
The latest news from Tilly Norwood is that apparently the doodle will now be added to a movie. The production, according to NBC (which apparently received some press materials) is being described by its creators in the Particle6 AI Production Studio as a “hybrid production with traditional film and television professionals.”
In March, Particle6 released a music video with Tilly Norwood credited as the recording artist, and It was embarrassing to an absolutely horrifying degree.. The song, called “Take The Lead,” failed to attract an audience beyond the morbidly curious and, despite having its own publicity machine, logged fewer than 400,000 views. Has, as far as I know, literally exclusively Negative YouTube comments. I almost don’t want to revisit “Take the Lead,” but unfortunately it suffers from one of the same obvious problems as Tilly Norwood’s film: it’s AI content about AI.
NBC writes that the film will be called Misaligned and will be misaligned, You see, it’s a piece of AI jargon for when a model misbehaves or works against the interests of humanity. The film will apparently take place in the cloud and feature “existential AI chaos.”
Doesn’t that sound horrible in a way that seems totally avoidable? If you had a gun to your head and you had to watch Tilly Norwood in a movie, wouldn’t you prefer it to be a normal movie? One where Tilly Norwood’s character, I don’t know, fights evil goblins? Doesn’t it sound like torture to talk about AI?
Well, it’s worth keeping in mind that the mastermind behind this whole Norwood concept is a Dutch comedian called Eline van der Velden, who he told the London Times that her experience in improv has taught her “to have no shame” and that it helped her become something of a high-powered businesswoman. “All that training and acting and comedy, especially improv comedy, really carries over into the boardroom. You have to think on your feet. Every presentation is a performance,” he says.
So let’s hope this continues for a while. At first, the idea of an AI-generated celebrity was unsettling. SAG-AFTRA, the American actors union, denounced Tilly Norwood’s alleged search for representation in show business. “It solves no ‘problem’: it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, endangering artists’ livelihoods and devaluing human art,” the union said. he wrote in a statement last year.
But this whole prolonged publicity stunt attracts fewer and fewer emotional reactions the longer it goes on. He’s like an improv comedian who made people boo at first. In improvisation, it is admirable to compromise. Maybe something will emerge from this material after the boos subside. But the reaction has clearly calmed down and nothing is happening. Now we are in for one of those long periods of silence interrupted by a cough. Tilly Norwood, whatever you are, get off the stage please.
