The people in front of the camera have made their opinion on the possibility of “AI actors” such as Tilly Norwood gaining representation in Hollywood known, with SAG-AFTRA condemning the idea of synthetic performers.
“SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics,” the Screen Actors Guild shared in a Tuesday statement.
“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation. It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience,” they continued. “It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”
“Additionally, signatory producers should be aware that they may not use synthetic performers without complying with our contractual obligations, which require notice and bargaining whenever a synthetic performer is going to be used,” their message concluded.
SAG-AFTRA’s statement comes after Dutch actress, comedian and digital producer Eline Van der Velden suggested at a Zurich summit that her creation Tilly Norwood could wind up signed by an agency “in the coming months.”
In turn, actors like Melissa Barrera, Emily Blunt, Simu Liu, Lukas Gage, Mara Wilson and Nicholas Alexander Chavez all spoke out about artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry.
The Tuesday update also comes after the guild has fought for AI protections with the AMPTP, and just two months after they ended their 320-day video game strike with interactive media companies over much of the same thing.
