If you’re not already familiar with the concept known as “Tilly Norwood,” it’s an AI-generated representation of a person, and in marketing materials, it’s treated vaguely like a celebrity who can sing and act, when it is, in fact, nothing more than a high-tech version of someone’s doodle of a pretty lady.
The latest Tilly Norwood news is that apparently the doodle is now going to be added to a feature film. The production, according to NBC (which apparently received some press materials) is being described by its creators at the Particle6 AI production studio as a “hybrid production with traditional film and TV professionals.”
Back in March, Particle6 released a music video with Tilly Norwood being credited as the recording artist, and it was cringe to an absolutely gruesome degree. The song, called “Take The Lead,“ failed to attract an audience beyond the morbidly curious, and—despite having its own publicity machine—logged less than 400 thousand views. It has, as far as I can tell, 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 the Tilly Norwood movie: it’s AI content about AI.
NBC writes that the movie will be called Misaligned, and being misaligned, you see, is a piece of AI jargon for when a model is misbehaving or working against the interests of humanity. The movie will apparently take place in the cloud, and feature “existential AI chaos.”
Doesn’t that sound awful in a way that seems totally avoidable? If there were a gun to your head, and you absolutely had to watch Tilly Norwood in a movie, wouldn’t you rather it be just a regular movie? One where Tilly Norwood’s character—I don’t know—fights evil goblins? Doesn’t making it about AI sound like torture?
Well it’s worth keeping in mind that the mastermind behind this whole Norwood concept is a Dutch comedian named Eline van der Velden who told the Times of London that her background in improv has taught her to have “no shame,” and that it helped her to become some kind of high-powered businesswoman. “All that training, performing and comedy, especially improv comedy, really translates into the boardroom. You’ve got to think on your feet. Every pitch is a performance,” she says.
So expect this to keep going for a while. At first, the whole idea of an AI-generated celebrity was disturbing. SAG-AFTRA, the U.S. union for actors, denounced Tilly Norwood’s supposed quest for representation in showbiz. “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,” the union wrote in a statement last year.
But this whole drawn-out publicity stunt is attracting less and less of an emotional reaction the longer it goes on. It’s like a bit from an improv comedian that made people boo at first. In improv, it’s admirable to commit. Maybe something will come from this material after the booing subsides. But the reaction has clearly died down, and nothing’s happening. Now we’re in for one of those long stretches of silence punctuated by a cough. Tilly Norwood, whatever you are, just get off the stage please.
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