To Be or Not To Be… Human

A photo of Tilly Norwood, an AI actress, from an Instagram account created for her. Photo Credits: Particle6.

Edie Berke, Staff Writer for The Powderhorn 

Imagine you’re at Regal Cinemas, watching the latest movie. It’s amazing! The plot is well-crafted, the scenes are engrossing, and the acting is incredible. As the credits roll, you decide to look up the main actress to see what other movies she has been in. Then, as you click the search button, you discover that she isn’t human.

As AI has become more popular over the past few years, it has found its way into almost every industry. It has often been used in the movie industry to assist with visual effects and script analysis, but a recently revealed technology is causing much controversy as it focuses on the acting, not the production. Tilly Norwood is an AI character that was developed by the production company Particle6 with the goal of creating the ideal actress. Her computer program has been fed the work of countless professional performers, who were not asked for consent for their images to be used and were not provided compensation. Her creator, Dutch actress and comedian Eline Van der Velden, has expressed her ambitions for Norwood to become “the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman.” 

Several famous actors, such as Emily Blunt and Whoopi Goldberg, have come forward, expressing concern about Tilly and what she might herald for the future of acting. Kane Hall, the AI teacher at Watauga, also has reservations about this new technology.

“I'm of the opinion that art is very fundamental to human nature, and I think that a computer can't recreate that,” said Hall. “So I think what people have to be concerned about is that there are people who are going to take advantage of AI in order to take jobs and income that a real artist might have had.”

Sarah Miller, one of the theater teachers at Watauga, agrees with Hall. She believes that Tilly has the potential for a negative impact on the members of the performing community.

“Where I think Tilly is going to become problematic is at the professional level,” said Miller. “Joe Schmo (ie. a director) doesn't want to hire an actor, a person, to do a job, and instead wants to just purchase the rights to Tilly or something like Tilly. That saves that dude a gazillion dollars, because nobody has to pay [Tilly]. Nobody has to cover her Union dues. Nobody has to give her health insurance or provide life insurance.”

Hiring an AI actress rather than a real one could save a director time as well as money. Rather than having to instruct a person on the details of a scene and deal with the possibility of numerous takes, a director could simply input commands into a computer and get the perfect shot in one try.

“Joe Schmo then doesn't have to interact with a human being,” said Miller. “That human being is a non-entity, because he's just making this code do what he wants.”

Another potential draw of AI actors is the ability to mold them to fit any written character. Finn Hogan, a member of the Playmakers theater ensemble, believes that computer programs such as Tilly would bypass what could be seen as limitations of human actors.

“Humans, when we act, we put a little bit of ourselves into characters no matter what,” said Hogan. “If you don't have to have a human do that, you can make the character without ever having the extra layers of a different personality underneath it.”

Along with these benefits come a host of problems, one being the lack of consent from the performers whose images and work were used to help develop Tilly. These actors were not contacted about the project or provided compensation for their contributions.

“In schools, in our world, people make a huge deal about plagiarism,” said Hogan. “You are taught from second grade that you're not supposed to plagiarize things, and that it's very, very serious. I think this inherently is a form of plagiarism, but it goes beyond that in a way that I don't think we have a word for yet. It's almost like stealing someone's identity and giving it to a machine.”

One of the biggest issues surrounding programs like Tilly is the possibility of AI taking acting jobs that would have once been given to humans. Miller, who has been teaching theater in North Carolina for 29 years, is concerned for her students and their future in the field.

“I’ll be sad that my students, who are training for a career, can never compete with an ‘it’ that responds to any programming it's given, to any code,” said Miller. “It's taking jobs away from the kids I train, in the profession I love.”

Although Hogan is not planning to pursue a theater career, they understand what Tilly might mean for people who are. In the face of this impending shift within the performing arts community, they emphasize the value of human connection in acting.

“[Acting] is kind of like a way of life,” said Hogan. “It feels like truly important work to be able to tell a story like that, and it's something we actors love doing. And, of course, it would be concerning to us that someday, maybe, that opportunity might disappear completely for people. I think it brings a new urgency to the way that I would need to portray any acting that I would end up doing. It feels more important than ever to put authentic, real human emotions into acting.”