SAG-AFTRA Weighs in on AI Firestorm: ‘To Be Clear, “Tilly Norwood” Is Not an Actor’

SAG-AFTRA has released a statement September 30 roundly condemning artificial intelligence talent studio Xicoia’s shopping of an AI actor named Tilly Norwood to the industry.

News broke from Deadline at the Zurich Summit on September 27 that Hollywood talent agents have been quietly circling Norwood for representation. For the past five months, Xicoia, launched by Dutch technologist Emily Van der Velden as part of her company Particle 6 Productions, has been soft-launching Norwood on Instagram.

The studio has been posting headshots, candids, and even motion graphics of the AI performer, who takes the form of a dewy teenage girl who is supposed to live in London. Just in the past week, Xicoia has posted hypothetical, AI-generated screenshots of Norwood in a kind of digital portfolio showing the different film projects she could appear in: There’s one of her in a dimly-lit thriller scenario, one of her on a subway (do AI characters need public transportation?), and one of her in a warm, candle-lit period romance setting where she appears to be having an emotional heart-to-heart with an object of her affection, her furrowed brow conveying anguish.

Needless to say, SAG-AFTRA sees this as an existential threat.

“SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics,” the statement from the union began.

“To be clear,” the statement continued, “‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation. 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. It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”

“Additionally, signatory producers should be aware that they may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used.”

Since the Deadline report, the existence of Norwood has rankled many in Hollywood, including Melissa Barrera, who posted on Instagram, “Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a$$. How gross, read the room.”

Actor and model Michael Aurelio tweeted, “Pretty telling that the industries first venture into this was to create a teenage girl they could control.”

For her part, Van der Velden responded to the growing backlash by writing on Instagram, “To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood, she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art. Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity.”

“I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a new paintbrush. Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories. I’m an actor myself, and nothing — certainly not an AI character — can take away the craft or joy of human performance.”