Rebuilding Rob

Making headlines today, like this video from Access Hollywood is Tilly Norwood, a AI created “actress”. Understandably, actors in Hollywood are concerned.

A little over two years ago, I wrote about AI and my thoughts on iHERE, and I even followed up on the same topic one year later HERE.

One of the protections negotiated in the recent SAG-AFTA actors strike was against the use of their likenesses on the creation of AI created characters and actors. Perhaps the biggest sticking-point in this story is Norwood’s creators claim that several talent agencies are looking to “sign” the AI creation.

I’m not in the entertainment industry. I assume the purpose of signing an actor or artist to an agency is so that they can be shopped around for potential acting jobs. What does that really mean for an AI actor? Could they conceivably be cast with real actors in a traditional live-action movie? Does this mean that we could potentially see AI generated stories featuring AI generated actors? And who would get paid for such work? The programmers? The talent agency? Or does this studio just skip paying a AI actor and pocket the money? Would this lead to flesh-and -blood actors being replaced by AI actors?

Granted, I’m extrapolating this out to the worst case scenario. After all, I recently wrote about a band , the Velvet Sundown, the AI generated music group that has attained hundreds of thousands of followers on Spotify.

I can understand why actors will be concerned. AI generated actors would render flesh-and-blood actors obsolete. Why cast a big name, high-salary-commanding actor who looks like a particular character, when a software engineer could simply create a spitting image of Harry Potter or Batman or whoever the character may be via AI?

Computer generated characters are nothing new I. Hollywood. One need look no further than Groot or Rocket in the various Marvel movies; Gollum in the Lord of the Ring trilogy, or even Yoda from the Star Wars prequels. But in each of those cases, on the visuals were computer generated. Human actors still voiced the characters. In the case of a Gollum, actor Andy Serkis performed as the character on-set with a motion capture suit; only to have his movements animated as the Gollum character. In the case of Tilly Norwood, this is an actor who is built completely within a computer.

The real concern is that AI actors would put flesh and blood actors out of work, specifically actors who command large salaries. Of course, if you can create characters via AI, build sets and wrote stories with AI. this would put a lot of people – far beyond the over-paid big-name actors out of work.

As somebody who fancies himself as something of a writer I would really hate to see the human element taken out of the arts. To be honest, I don’t really have a problem with AI created content as long as TV Studios, record labels, the program writers are upfront about the fact that it is AI generated. I mentioned the velvet sundown earlier. I know that their music is AI created, but I still kind of like it. It stinks that I would never be able to see that band in concert, let alone meet them.

The creators of Norwood claim that AI is just another tool and that AI created content would be just another medium, like animation. But it’s easy to see where movie studios would take the proverbial and run with it. Would audiences buy in though? How essential is the human element I storytelling? These are the real questions.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:

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• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

AI art created with ChatGPT.

The article “when Skynet meets Hollywood“ first appeared on Rebuilding Rob