The Phantom Actress

LOS ANGELES, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The recent debut of an AI-generated "actress" dubbed Tilly Norwood, and its producer's boasts of interest from studio executives, sparked a backlash on Tuesday from the SAG-AFTRA actors union, condemning the replacement of human performers with "synthetics."

The Hollywood buzz around Tilly Norwood, introduced on Saturday at a film industry conference in Zurich, and the union's scathing reaction to it reflected the dread many in the creative community feel about the intersection of artificial intelligence and show business.

The official Tilly Norwood launch consisted of a 20-second appearance of the photo-real character - a twenty-something fictional ingénue bearing no particular resemblance to any real celebrity - in a brief video parody about making an AI-generated television show.

Dutch actor-producer Eline Van der Velden, whose London-based AI production studio Particle6 created Tilly Norwood, said during her presentation at the Zurich Summit the project was starting to turn heads.

After months of facing boardroom skepticism, talent agents were starting to tell her: "'We need to do something with you guys,'" Hollywood trade paper Variety quoted Van der Velden as saying. She said an announcement of a first-of-its-kind talent agency deal was a few months away, Variety reported.

Concerns about Hollywood actors and writers being exploited, and even supplanted, by AI-generated scripts and performers was a major issue SAG-AFTRA's most recent round of contract talks with studios and streaming services.

Computer-generated imagery is nothing new to the film and television industry, and AI-enhanced software has more recently emerged in various effects such as "de-aging" technology allowing actors to portray younger versions of themselves.

The ability to convincingly replicate a feature-length human film performance with AI stand-ins is still seen as far off.

- By: Steve Gorman, Danielle Broadway and Dawn Chmielewski