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The creator of an AI actor who exploded across the internet over the weekend has insisted she is an artwork after fierce backlash from the creative community. Tilly Norwood — a composite girl-next-door described on her Instagram page as an aspiring actor — has already attracted attention from multiple talent agents, Eline Van der Velden told an industry panel in Switzerland.

Van der Velden said studios and other entertainment companies were quietly embracing AI, which her company, Particle6, says can drastically reduce production costs. “When we first launched Tilly, people were like, ‘What’s that?’, and now we’re going to be announcing which agency is going to be representing her in the next few months,” Van der Velden said, according to Deadline.

The AI-generated Norwood has already appeared in a short sketch and in July, the creator told Broadcast International the company had big ambitions for their creation. “We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that’s the aim of what we’re doing.

“People are realising that their creativity doesn’t need to be boxed in by a budget — there are no constraints creatively and that’s why AI can really be a positive.”

AI is a huge red line for Hollywood’s creative community and its use by studios was one of the fundamental sticking points during the writers’ and actors’ strikes that gripped Hollywood in 2023.

Scream actor Melissa Barrera said performers should boycott any talent agent involved in promoting the AI actor. “Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a$$. How gross, read the room,” she wrote on Instagram.

Mara Wilson, who played the lead in Matilda in 1996, said such creations took work away from real people. “And what about the hundreds of living young women whose faces were composited together to make her? You couldn’t hire any of them?” she said on social media.

In a lengthy post on Norwood’s Instagram page, Van der Velden defended the character and insisted she was not a job killer. “She is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work — a piece of art. Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation and that in itself shows the power of creativity.

“I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool… AI offers another way to imagine and build stories.”

The use of AI has become increasingly visible in recent months in the creative industries, generating controversy each time. The virtual band The Velvet Sundown surpassed one million listeners on streaming platform Spotify this summer. In August, Vogue magazine published an advertisement featuring an AI-generated model.

Cover image via Tilly Norwood/Instagram