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Hollywood stars are speaking out in protest after an “AI actress” named Tilly Norwood attracted agency interest.
Norwood is an entirely virtual creation owned by Xicoia, a talent studio attached to the AI production company Particle6.
Deadline reported yesterday that several Hollywood talent agents are interested in signing Norwood.
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Hollywood stars are the last people I will feel sad for. AI can go ahead and replace them all.
Hollywood “stars” are the very very few actors who have made it big. While you may know hundreds of famous actors, there are 170,000 in SAG and way more just trying to get by acting in small parts.
While this is a flashy headline/“product” AI is quickest to replace those with less money, lower status, and smaller roles. I’m glad actors with a platform are using it to stand against this.
It’s a very, very steep and slippery slope though.
While it’s stupid as fuck, paying an actor millions to play pretend is just as dumb.
It’s just business, sweetie.
Don’t get in bed with businesspeople.
I don’t see a problem. Mickey Mouse isn’t a real mouse either.
Mickey Mouse is at least animated by real humans. They are in a way the actors that create the performance.
No AI star got any “agency interest” these headlines are purposelly crafted to create the impression that there was interest. This is free publicity for an AI avatar nobody gives a shit about.
Yeah, how is Harvey Weinstein supposed to molest an AI?
Won’t anybody think of the children?
After only a second of thought, AI child actors seems like an alternative to exploiting real children, but im sure thats being generous and theres a million reasons why it would suck
we have cgi animals in movies, so cgi children isn’t that far-fetched of an idea
VR headset and a fleshlight.
Considering what his allegedly looks like, maybe he should’ve washed his toys more —or, at all. 🤢
The real Turing test
This doesn’t seem like something that benefits the majority of people.
If it was like “here’s free (or at least legitimately cheap) access to some virtual actors. Go make the movie of your dreams, kids!” maybe that would be cool. Maybe there are people out there with brilliant ideas that are blocked by not having real actors to act for them. Maybe.
But this just seems like another way for the rich to keep more wealth for themselves.
Also acting (among other creative fields) is where you see most of the actual rags to riches stories, and the bourgeoisie really wants to kick the remaining ladders behind them.
You can already hire dirt cheap nobody actors for your indie passion project by putting up a poster near any college with a liberal arts program. Or use a website. Hell, there are even carve outs to stay full union.
But if you have money to make a “real” movie? You have money to pay talent.
But this just seems like another way for the rich to keep more wealth for themselves.
Yup. Insert AlwaysHasBeen.meme here.
That last sentence alone has described the entire American business sector for the past 10 years or so
past
1050 years or soAnd even further back than that, but post WW2 I feel like progress was made.
Seems like it could be like music production software becoming widely available. Now you don’t need to get a drummer, a bass player etc. Together to make music, you can just make it at home on your computer. It enables lower level people to get off the ground as they now have the tools that the pros do, you want a saxophone but don’t know anyone in town who can play or can’t afford one, just use a synth that sounds like one. Once you get signed though and you have a label giving you studio time you might hire an actual saxophone player because it sounds better.
Same with movies, AI could be helpful in making small low/no budget indie movies, but I don’t think it’s at the same quality as real actors for big budget movies where people expect more, so maybe the wealthy studio execs won’t benefit from it much right now.
If this agency normalizes AI actors for the big movie theatres it’ll help the smaller ones too, IMO.
It’s already happening that people are using AI to make the movies of their dreams (well, short form video, at any rate - The Adventures of Reemo Green is a recent example that comes to mind, I would dearly love to see a TV series of this guy). They don’t need to use an AI actor agency, but they do have to face the “ew, AI!” Reaction to their work. If the big studios start doing it that’ll make things easier for them.
This feels like an archaic system clinging to life.
Why would middlemen like agencies, talent studios and ‘AI production companies’ be needed for what is essentially CG?
For the same reason they are “needed” for flesh and blood humans.
Studios need to know who is and isn’t worth even spending the time for an interview on, let alone filming. For a human this might be avoiding complete flakes that waste casting time or, theoretically, avoiding something like Joaquin Phoenix pulling out of a movie at the very last minute because it was too gay (allegedly).
For an AI? That is a model that has been vetted that it won’t lead to immediate law suits because it is just Tom Cruise or that can be programmed to do what is needed. Sometimes you want a model that is like Keanu and became a gun nut after The Matrix and shoots 3 gun in his spare time. And sometimes you want that Korean Boy Band actor who is going to flinch every time a blank goes off because that is the character.
On the talent side? What role you “choose” can completely derail your career. We all love industry darlings like the Twilight kids or Jennifer Lawrence who can do both big budget leading roles AND pick some of the quirkiest and most interesting indie films. But pick the wrong quirky role and you are “that chick who sucked a guy off” or get typecast into action movies and so forth.
And that is doubly true for AI models and their handlers/trainers. Everyone pretends they can spot generative AI because there are six fingers on that hand. But the reality is that different underlying algorithms/models will have characteristics in terms of what training data they weight and so forth. So two “actresses” generated with the same toolset WILL have similarities if you obsess over it enough. And… it won’t end well if Aki Ross 2.0’s underlying model was also used to train Project Melodee 2.0 and people realize her face when she is eating that cake that represents the last vestiges of her innocence is REALLY similar to the face that Melodee make when she is doing DVDA.
At which point the agency helps to avoid situations where “Well… you are contracted and mr tarantino wants you to drive that car while he jacks it to your feet. And you wouldn’t want to be problematic, would you?”.
And the last part being, funny enough, collective bargaining. An individual is gonna have a hard time saying no to that rock star director. Whereas said director is going to think twice about taking advantage of someone if it means they might get blocklisted by the same org that represents Thom Cruz.
There are obviously a LOT of issues with “AI Actors” and… I wish I believed it wasn’t going to be a thing within the next 5 years. But the idea of having talent agencies to act as intermediaries still makes a LOT of sense.
That is a model that has been vetted that it won’t lead to immediate law suits because it is just Tom Cruise or that can be programmed to do what is needed. Sometimes you want a model that is like Keanu and became a gun nut after The Matrix and shoots 3 gun in his spare time. And sometimes you want that Korean Boy Band actor who is going to flinch every time a blank goes off because that is the character.
We are talking about a completely different ecosystem here.
These generative ‘models’ either fall into the buckets of:
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A very small basket of completely closed, relatively inflexible corporate APIs.
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Or a still-small basket of open models folks build these skeletal frameworks around, or maybe loras or adapters.
All these AI startups like to pretend they’re doing something special when, underneath, they’re really just prompting ChatGPT with a wrapper, or hosting a Flux finetune or whatever.
In other words, they are NOT pretraining Thom Cruz from scratch. The pool of usable frontier models is very small.
And… it won’t end well if Aki Ross 2.0’s underlying model was also used to train Project Melodee 2.0 and people realize her face when she is eating that cake that represents the last vestiges of her innocence is REALLY similar to the face that Melodee make when she is doing DVDA.
At which point the agency helps to avoid situations where “Well… you are contracted and mr tarantino wants you to drive that car while he jacks it to your feet. And you wouldn’t want to be problematic, would you?”.
Again, you’re treating these ‘models’ like a diverse group of humanity, and like every company’s training from scratch, when that’s not how the software’s set up.
It makes no economic sense to treat them like people with their associated complications. They’re software suites, they’re tools, more like different flavors Davinci Resolve or whatever studios use these days, that can each produce an infinite spectrum of humans depictions, basically for free. A closer analog would be video game development, with the cost of voice acting and animation stripped out; the only thing that makes The Master Chief, Commander Shepard, or a particular incarnation of Lara Croft ‘unique’ is the copyright, recognition, and software suite they built them into.
EDIT:
To add to this, I think its extremely dangerous and unhealthy to anthropomorphize them.
In fact, this might be what the agencies are trying to do. ‘Humanizing’ them like theyre individual, sentient things makes them appear less like Lara Croft selling a Snickers bar. It may be optics for the customers (like ad makers hiring actors/actresses) more than anything.
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For an AI? That is a model that has been vetted that it won’t lead to immediate law suits because it is just Tom Cruise or that can be programmed to do what is needed. Sometimes you want a model that is like Keanu and became a gun nut after The Matrix and shoots 3 gun in his spare time. And sometimes you want that Korean Boy Band actor who is going to flinch every time a blank goes off because that is the character.
Okay, but there’s no real evidence that what they’re selling does any of this. It’s a bland digital photocopy of human behavior, not a curious and complex human talent, with interests beyond following the commands of an experienced prompt engineer.
There are obviously a LOT of issues with “AI Actors” and… I wish I believed it wasn’t going to be a thing within the next 5 years. But the idea of having talent agencies to act as intermediaries still makes a LOT of sense.
On these terms, its not really a “talent agency” so much as an “IP management firm”. And the product they’re selling is just a very high end NFT with all the associated problems.
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“I love your actress, can I take a closer look at her?”
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click-copy / click-paste
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“Thanks, you’re fired.”
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Nothing you said has anything to do with reality, I’m sorry to say.
An AI “actor” isn’t a unique piece of software. It’s the result of putting a prompt through one of maybe three or four AI video generation models, or one of the few dozen remixes of one of them, with perhaps a few Loras thrown in. Rather than comparing them to humans, it’s much more accurate to compare them to a particular collection of plug-ins for your favorite music editing software. A billion different people can have the exact same plug-ins and create virtually indistinguishable content from each other, and the only content that will stand out is the one made by people with actual talent, who would be able to get great results with any assortment of plug-ins. Which makes all these AI characters completely fungible.
Not to mention that the AI “actors” can only do what someone tells them to do. They’re not talented artists putting their own twist onto a character. They’re like the clothes and make-up worn by an actual actor. Which means that even in a make-believe world where they become popular, studios will still have to deal with the same bullshit they deal with today from actors, except it’ll be prompt engineers dishing it out. Don’t worry though, because AI “actors” will never be popular as such. At most they’ll replace certain types of CG, but never real people. Not with any quality at least.
Everything about this “news” story would have been easy for Tilly’s owners to orchestrate as publicity for their projects
I’m wondering if they used AI to name the talent studio.
“Xicoia” sounds like a prescription my elderly parents would ask their doctor about after seeing it on TV.
Probably used AI to write the article too.
Just an ouroboros of shit
A snake sucking on its own asshole
I heard in my head like the old ricolla ads.
“ZeeeeeeCoyAaaaaah!”
Eventually it’s gonna happen.
We’re not there yet, and we’ll start seeing it from the bottom up when it actually happens.
It’s already used for crowds, next is extras walking down the street, then once it gets to speaking lines the stars will have to worry. The won’t be replaced till last, but eventually making a movie won’t involve a single camera.
We might actually get a proper indie scene. AI is going to pull us out of the Hollywood bullshit era.
Soulless marvel character showcases disguised as feature films won’t cut it anymore.
There’s always a proper indie scene, it’s just nobody cares about it.
Soulless marvel character showcases disguised as feature films won’t cut it anymore.
I already don’t believe it should cut it, but the masses are the stupid masses.
We might actually get a proper indie scene. AI is going to pull us out of the Hollywood bullshit era.
And how do you propose this would happen?
If anybody can build a scene in blender with some rough models and untextured puppets, then generate over that into something that looks like movie quality, the studios just lost their whole industry.
They have a monopoly because of the costs associated, AI destroys those costs essentially. It’s also the main reason why these “talent agencies” will fail, AI actors are going to be a dime a dozen.
We’re not there yet, but its prettty decent already for amateurs or low-stakes proffesionals. Like this
Influencers using horizontal video? Pft. So unrealistic.
It’s being used by the government to fake the president. If it can fool the dumb country bumpkins it can be used in Hollywood. Future media is gonna be lifeless and uncanny.
Are you implying that the bearded belly dancer on the beaches of the golden Trump Riviera was AI?
Trump recently did an official announcement using an ai avatar to hide his stroke-face
May you live in stupid times.
HA that’s funny, not even the people behind the original Chinese curse probably thought such evil was even possible, or maybe they thought it would be funny?
Goddam I wish these were merely “interesting” times.
Thumbnail has a framed movie poster of my favorite film of all time:
“fffff”
dont forget the sequel, “gggggg”
Does it creep anyone else out that the first “AI actress” they’re trying to sell is a very young woman? It could’ve been literally anyone else. This is a character who can’t say no, can’t lay down boundaries, can’t say something is unrealistic. If they want to show her flying on Epstein’s private plane or getting shot at school, there’s nothing to stop them.
Young + attractive + female = talented
Oh sweet child, don’t let anyone ever tell you about fan fiction.
I mean, obviously yeah there’s that but this isn’t fan fiction. Quite the opposite in fact.
Hater fact?
Critic review?
Does it creep anyone else out that the first “AI actress” they’re trying to sell is a very young woman?
Watching “The Substance” and thinking that it would be better as a Black Mirror episode.
This is a character who can’t say no, can’t lay down boundaries, can’t say something is unrealistic.
In fairness, if we took every pedophile on earth and slapped a GACHA game in front of them to occupy their horny energies indefinitely? I wouldn’t hate the idea of alienating and commoditizing this particular corner of the population.
At the same time, there’s definitely a Pete Hegseth tier mental disorder that comes out of being perpetually surrounded by women who can’t/won’t say no. Eventually, you’re going to have people who immerse themselves in this video game put the device down and try to interact with the real world on the same terms.
She also can’t physically interact with a real person.
Ai is really only good at creating young women because that’s what 90% of headshots online are
Go browse image generation models up for download on https://civitai.com/. Even when you’re not signed in, almost all the models are advertised with generated images of young looking women. And if you create an account and turn on not safe for work, it gets even worse because everything then becomes highly pornographic, because that’s what people use the models for primarily.
That is what 95% of image/video generation is used for, creating porn for mostly young looking women.
So it makes sense that’s what they’re trying to sell here, not saying it’s right or moral. Feeling creeped out is probably an appropriate response for many people
For me, I don’t really care. Sex sells, that’s how it’s always been and will continue to be into the future.
Long term I do think it’s an improvement, there will always be a demand for porn so creating it virtually without economically coercing young women to do it is “harm reduction”. In the future with VR and cyberdildonics it might even make prostitution / sex work mostly obsolete.
Honestly I think it might be best to simply ban AI actors looking like humans.
I fear it may cause even more unrealistic standards than having almost perfect actors, and people may feel even less as part of a society than they do now.I can see how it can be practical and cheaper and all that, but if the depiction of humans stop to be actual human, I think we may be walking into a whole new set of problems in the future.
CGI actors, too.
And stunt men, if you’re going to depict a famous actor doing something dangerous it’s false advertising to have someone else doing it for him.
We should probably ban makeup as well.
