Well, science and creativity have collided and Tilly Norwood is born. Tilly Norwood is the first Artificial Intelligence actor … actress … performer. She’s not a ‘real’ person, just a digital construct. (The reality of digital things is a topic for another discussion.)
I suppose it was inevitable. As Robert Heinlein put it ‘the problem with the inevitable is it always happens.’ For decades the dream of ‘virtual reality’ has been pursued and developed with varying degrees of success. I remember the AT&T commercials in the early 1990s when they were heavily pushing the whole virtual reality agenda. “Can you attend a business meeting in Boston, while still at home in your pajamas? With virtual reality, you will!” With this constant push to develop the technology, why is anyone surprised that we have artificial reality (there’s a oxymoron for you!) instead?
The idea of an artificial performer has been around since at least 2002 when the movie S1m0ne came out. In it, Al Pacino plays Viktor Taransky, a producer that has an actress storm off the set, so he creates a digital actress that won’t argue with him and cause him problems. Of course, S1m0ne goes on to become a media darling, and her acting career takes off. She stars in films and wins awards. And the entire time Taransky is trying to keep the secret that she doesn’t really exist. Tilly Norwood is the same, but the secret is out in the open – we’ve been told she isn’t real. Hmmm, maybe this is S1m0ne in reverse – Tilly might be real and they are just trying to convince us she is artificial. (Cue conspiracy theories!)
Of course, Hollywood is up in arms over this. Writers have bee up in arms over AI writing stories, and, I suppose now, movie scripts. Why use real actors (who want to be paid, and have sparkling mineral water in their dressing rooms, and other perks) when you can just generate an entire cast via A.I.? I’m sure that creating A.I. versions of famous stars from the past is right around the corner, if it hasn’t been done already. Who wouldn’t want to see another Bogey and Bacall film? Let’s bring back Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for Cleopatra: The Sequel, written by A.I., of course. If an A.I. Humphrey Bogart makes a film, does his estate get the money?
We’ve had motion capture performances in The Lord Of The Rings and Planet Of The Apes movies. That of course is having a real actor (Andy Serkis in both of the above mentioned series) move and speak and act while the whole thing is captured digitally. Then it is turned into a character for the films through special effects and movie magic. I look at that as really sophisticated animation. Cartoons have been around for over 100 years. They are simply voices behind a series of drawings that have the illusion of movement. Is it really that much of a stretch to the whole thing being generated by artificial intelligence?
When Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was released, I remember that everyone was up in arms that the main character, Dr. Aki Ross (played by Ming-Na Wen) was ‘too photorealistic’. People were concerned that computer generated graphics were getting too good, and soon you wouldn’t be able to trust images. Photorealistic images would mean you could create an image of anything and the average person wouldn’t be able to tell that it was entirely digitally created. A photo of a Senator in a compromising position with a lady of the evening was no longer proof that any foul play had actually been committed.
The really big news about Tilly Norwood is that she will play the lead in a movie. Is she going down the same road as S1m0ne, on her way to the Oscars? Will A.I. performers take all the jobs from human actors? Who knows. It is way too early in the game to foresee how this is going to turn out. Let’s not even get into the topic of AI generated porn.
I’m not sure how I feel about this development. On the one hand, I’m a tech enthusiast. It is fascinating to see what part of the tech envelope will be pushed next. I’ve stated before that I think A.I. could help me make animated films. On the other hand, I don’t know if an A.I. performer will ever be good enough to make me feel deep emotions from watching one of their films. I’m not saying it isn’t possible, I just don’t see it happening soon. This will undoubtably bring up copyright and other issues, such as who owns the ‘rights’ to digital performers and their content. It’s going to be a tangled mess for a while. I’m curious to see how it plays out.
Is it right or wrong to create and use A.I. performers? I don’t know. I do know that they are now a thing and you won’t be able to get rid of them. All we can really do is wait to see what happens.
If you’d like to support my efforts, why not buy me a chocolate chip cookie through my Ko-Fi page? https://ko-fi.com/jhusum
Apologies for length, but we have the intersection of multiple issues here. First off:
Thousands of years ago, a community humans (or perhaps proto-humans) was living together. They hunted, they gathered, they did all the things to make it a community. And there was a person (or persons, or maybe even a whole guild) who was the pre-eminent expert on the long and arduous process of creating fire, because the community would die if the fire ever went out and couldn’t be re-lit. And that person had both wealth and status. Until one day, someone else discovered that they could make fire just by hitting together a piece of flint with some iron oxide. Voila! Anyone could make fire. It was quick and easy. The community fire maker lost his job. The fire making guild went out of business. I hope they had pensions.
And that, in a nutshell, is the story of human progress. Someone (often a person who just lost their job due to progress) created something new, which almost immediately turned into Something That Was Absolutely Necessary For Human Life, and that person was the Bill Gates / Jeff Bezos / Elon Musk of their time, until everyone else figured out how to do it for themselves, and then else someone came up with something bigger. The oil lamp industry took a big hit when the incandescent light bulb became economical. The pet food industry came into existence with the advent of the automobile because no one could think of anything else to do with all the horses who were out of jobs.
And so now this situation has hit the entertainment industry big time. After all, what do you need Anne Hathaway for if you have Tilly Norwood? Will Tilly do her own stunts? I bet she doesn’t have any problems with nude scenes. What will happen when Tilly learns how to direct as well as act?
I suspect the issue will come down to 2 things: the limits of the technology, and human psychology. First question, can Tilly truly pass the Turing Test? Does she really pass as a physical human being? Some people will say she already has, but I remember the same thing being said about CGI. (Brief aside in an already overlong text, but why do audiences who have so much trouble with CGI but have no trouble at all with a matte painting? For that matter, explain to me actors who have so much trouble acting in front of a green screen but no trouble with a canvas and paint backdrop?) But I am sure whatever tech issues remain will eventually be solved.
As for the psychological issue, it is this: will human audiences react to an AI actor the same way they react to human actors? I can easily see both a yes and a no answer to this question. If the answer is yes, we may well live to see human entertainers become a thing of the past.