\n<\/p>\n
\n\tEline Van der Velden didn\u2019t intend to set off a global backlash at the Zurich Film Festival. On a panel, she casually mentioned that she would soon be announcing which agency will represent \u201cTilly Norwood\u201d \u2014 an AI character that her company, Particle6, has created.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat remark \u2014 coupled with the image of the ingenue Tilly \u2014 generated an outpouring of fury, anxiety, fascination and lust. Maureen Dowd augured the collapse of civilization. Tyler Cowen, the economist, proclaimed Tilly his favorite actress and speculated about her virginity.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe reaction to it is the story,\u201d says Bryn Mooser, founder of Asteria, an AI film studio based in Los Angeles. \u201cIt\u2019s indicative that we\u2019re in a very tense moment in our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn Hollywood, Tilly crystallized fears about AI in a way not seen since the 2023 strikes. In the past two years, video AI models \u2014 including the just-released Sora 2 \u2014 have gotten better and better. Dozens of \u201cAI studios\u201d have sprouted up, with small teams of creators vying to make the first AI hit.<\/p>\n
\n\tParticle6 has been around since 2015, but it has turned itself into an AI production company over the past three years.<\/p>\n
\n\tVan der Velden, the founder and CEO, got her start as a sketch comedian and YouTube creator. A theme of her work is human discomfort. As \u201cMiss Holland,\u201d she would accost unsuspecting people in the manner of Sacha Baron Cohen\u2019s Ali G. In one \u201csocial experiment\u201d video, she asked people on the street to give her a sensuous kiss. Many were happy to oblige. She then spat into a glass and invited them to drink from it. They were revolted.<\/p>\n
\n\tVan der Velden has since moved behind the camera, partly because she got tired of the hate she would receive when her videos went viral.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn an interview in April, Van der Velden revealed that she was at work on a \u201cfactual entertainment\u201d show for a U.K. broadcaster that uses AI to talk about AI.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cCreating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftsmanship,\u201d Van der Velden wrote on Instagram in response to the furor. \u201cMuch of my work has always been about holding up a mirror to society through satire, and this is no different.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThrough a publicist, Van der Velden declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n
\n\tIf the point of Tilly Norwood is to make people uncomfortable, then mission accomplished. But there\u2019s nothing particularly novel about synthetic characters. Look no further than Miquela, the virtual influencer who \u201csigned\u201d with CAA in 2020. Yet the idea that an agency would sign an \u201cAI actress\u201d in 2025 struck many as a betrayal.<\/p>\n
\n\tAgents are supposed to take the side of creatives against the studios, so it felt like a line of defense was giving way.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think that\u2019s exactly what has triggered people,\u201d says Tricia Biggio, co-founder and CEO of AI animation studio Invisible Universe. \u201cFor agents to represent AI-generated characters as clients feels outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile the major studios are interested in using AI to enhance visual effects and speed up preproduction, they are not in a rush to cast AI talent. Under the SAG-AFTRA contract, the studios are required to notify the union if they plan to use synthetic characters. None has.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cTilly Norwood is not coming for anyone\u2019s job anytime soon in a Hollywood movie,\u201d Mooser says. \u201cI tell people, in the far back rooms of all the studios in town, there\u2019s not some guy chomping on a cigar saying, \u2018If only we can make this for a dollar.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCreative breakthroughs are more likely to come from small companies experimenting with off-the-shelf tools. But there\u2019s still a big gap between what those tools can deliver and a Hollywood production. And even short-form AI videos require a lot of creative labor.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe models are still not very good,\u201d says Rachel Joy Victor, co-founder of AI consultancy FBRC.AI. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of new talent that\u2019s emerging that\u2019s able to bridge that gap. That talent is human talent.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor artists who use AI, the appeal lies in adding to their creative palette.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a way for me to get stories out there faster,\u201d says Alex Naghavi, an AI artist who is part of the Runway creative partners program. \u201cI don\u2019t know if the lines have been clearly drawn. For me it\u2019s about originality. I don\u2019t want to make something that looks like Pixar or like Disney. I want to make something that feels fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Tilly announcement struck many in the AI content community as deliberately provocative. Invisible Universe has a character, Qai Qai, that makes music videos and has a record deal \u2014 and civilization stands.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cNobody has been mad about that,\u201d Biggio says. \u201cI don\u2019t think that everyone understands that this probably is a hype-building stunt. And B), it\u2019s not going to threaten their livelihood the way they think
it does.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAlex Ritman contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eline Van der Velden didn\u2019t intend to set off a global backlash at the Zurich Film Festival. On a panel, she casually mentioned that she would soon be announcing which agency will represent \u201cTilly Norwood\u201d \u2014 an AI character that her company, Particle6, has created. That remark \u2014 coupled with the image of the ingenue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4612,15076,10237,1162,15075],"class_list":{"0":"post-26776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-actress","9":"tag-norwood","10":"tag-stunt","11":"tag-threat","12":"tag-tilly"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}