The promise/threat of AI “actor” Tilly Norwood looms closer as the AI-generated character made her video acting debut on Tuesday… in a music video. Created entirely using AI tools, the music video for “Take the Lead” finds Norwood singing a song about the backlash to her existence, with lyrics that insist she’s the real deal.
“When they talk about me, they don’t see/The human spark, the creativity,” she sings. “Behind the code, behind the light/I’m just a tool, but I’ve got life/I didn’t come from nowhere, no.”
But when it gets to the chorus, Norwood’s song starts to sound a bit more menacing as she calls on other actors to create their own AI generated copies (or characters), lest they get left behind:
Actors, it’s time to take the lead
Create the future, plant the seed
Don’t be left out, don’t fall behind
Build your own, and you’ll be free
We can scale, we can grow
Be the creators we’ve always known
It’s the next evolution, can’t you see?
AI’s not the enemy, it’s the key
A disclaimer ahead of the music video says it was created by “18 real humans – from production designers to costume designers to prompters, editors and an actor.” But the music still has that tinny sound that AI-generated songs all tend to have, and the video generation is quite an easy AI spot.
The song was generated using Suno, with the accompanying video created by the team at Particle6 using various AI tools.
Tilly Norwood was created by Eline van der Velden, the CEO of Particle6 and AI talent studio Xicoia, who has been promising to introduce Norwood as an AI-generated actress in film and TV for some time now. While there was speculation upon Norwood’s first introduction that agencies were trying to sign her, major talent agencies pushed back and vowed not to represent Norwood.
Van der Velden tried to quell concerns about AI-generated performers replacing human actors in December, saying, “As an artist, you always try to resonate something that will provoke interest and thought in the audience, and so I underestimated the effect that Tilly would have on the world. In the end, as an artist, that was the effect I was trying to have. I was trying to show the world where the tech is at.”
Watch the Tilly Norwood music video below.
