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In an announcement that has received massive backlash across Hollywood, Eline Van der Velden, the Dutch founder of what she calls \u201cthe world\u2019s first artificial intelligence talent studio,\u201d told a film festival panel<\/a> over the weekend that her artificial intelligence \u201cactor\u201d Tilly Norwood<\/a> has received attention from multiple talent agents. It follows Van der Velden\u2019s statement to Broadcast International<\/a> over the summer that \u201cWe want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that\u2019s the aim of what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n But the public isn\u2019t asking for AI entities to replace human actors.<\/p>\n According to Variety<\/a>, Van der Velden told the panel at the Zurich Film Festival last weekend that \u201cTilly\u201d was initially met with skepticism in studio boardrooms, but their interest has increased \u2014 and that in the coming months she plans to announce who will represent the AI creation. It\u2019s not clear what contributed to the alleged increased interest in Tilly, but one possibility, assuming it\u2019s true, is that the technological sophistication of an AI-generated video by Van der Velden\u2019s AI company released<\/a> this summer piqued the curiosity of talent agents and film studios.<\/p>\n While Van der Velden\u2019s comments at the festival sounded triumphant, NBC News points out that actors across Hollywood<\/a> have responded with horror and anger. Actors Emily Blunt, Lukas Gage, Melissa Barrera and Kiersey Clemons, for example, have slammed the AI creation.<\/p>\n \u201cDoes it disappoint me? I don\u2019t know how to quite answer it, other than to say how terrifying this is,\u201d Blunt said<\/a> in an interview in response to the news about Tilly. When Blunt was shown an image of Tilly, Blunt responded with shock. \u201cNo, are you serious? That\u2019s an AI? Good Lord, we\u2019re screwed. That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don\u2019t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe View\u201d co-host and actor Whoopi Goldberg, one of the rare talents who\u2019s won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony (EGOT), had a different response. She said<\/a>, \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of an unfair advantage. But you know what? Bring it on. Because you can always tell them from us.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t share Goldberg\u2019s confidence. The tech is getting so good so quickly \u2014 and it\u2019s only going to get better \u2014 that it\u2019s conceivable that AI creations could be inserted into movies and shows without some audience members being able to tell they aren\u2019t real.<\/p>\n The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, seems vigilant about that possibility, and its statement Tuesday catalogs the many ways AI talent is problematic:<\/p>\n To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it\u2019s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers \u2014 without permission or compensation. It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we\u2019ve seen, audiences aren\u2019t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. It doesn\u2019t solve any ‘problem’ \u2014 it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n At least one talent agency came out and said<\/a> that it refuses to work with \u201cTilly Norwood.\u201d<\/p>\n Van der Velden has responded defensively to the condemnations. \u201cTo those who have expressed anger over the creation of our AI character Tilly Norwood: she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work \u2014 a piece of art,\u201d she said. \u201cJust as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories.\u201d<\/p>\n But Van der Velden\u2019s statement is glib nonsense. She has explicitly pitched Tilly as a replacement for human beings \u2014 otherwise why liken her to \u201cthe next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman\u201d? Why is she fielding talent agents for real actors? What is the value proposition of Tilly Norwood as an \u201cAI actress\u201d if not to resemble a human so much that it could replace<\/em> a human actor? And what\u2019s in it for film studios and production companies if not replacing humans with a much cheaper alternative?<\/p>\n Using AI technology to replace human actors would not be like depicting a human in a cartoon, which has a clear genre distinction from live-action movies. Nor is it like using puppets or CGI to depict creatures that are clearly understood to not be humans and interact with casts of human actors. The technology, as Blunt\u2019s response suggests, could be imperceptible.<\/p>\n\n