Let’s set aside the risk of AI’s extinction-level capabilities. Even an extended chat with Tilly Norwood, the AI “actress” many see as Hollywood’s villain, left me a little more unnerved about the technology’s implications. Such unsettlement met me early Monday when I logged onto tillynorwood.com, clicked the customary boxes and agreed to the standard terms, and waited as a capybara, for some unknown reason, toiled at a desk until, finally, Tilly appeared.
Programmed in a cream blouse and flanked by Edison bulbs and a flamingo, Norwood sat there ready for an interview. Starting Wednesday through Sunday, members of the general public can interview Tilly about nearly anything they want, giving her free rein to answer whatever a user throws at her (save for politics, profanity or “intrusive questions about her private life”). The company, which offered Tilly up to several media outlets this week ahead of the public debut, claims Tilly can “see” the interviewer, letting her opine on anything from their outfit to their facial expressions. (Case in point: As I sat and questioned Norwood on subjects including like whether she planned to kill us all or her thoughts about human actors, she found several ways to suggest I looked “thoughtful” and “pensive.” A surreal experience will do that.) The stunt is the latest from Particle 6, the U.K. company founded by CEO and Norwood creator Eline Van der Velden.
It’s a bid to promote both the company’s technological capabilities and the upcoming Tilly-led film “Misaligned,” an AI-generated comedy-drama with a meta-narrative about an AI persona seduced by a dark web bot to abandon her guardrails to try and become more human. The Tilly I chatted is built on a different combination of third-party models than the actress version, so users cannot try and preempt the company with their own Tilly features. She’s not scripted, but because of her guardrails, the limited technology and the fact that she is not a real person, Tilly rings a little stiff, repetitive and emotionless.
But in chatting with her for roughly 20 minutes Monday morning, one can’t help but return to the original question: Who is this for? Actors fear avatars like Tilly will take away jobs, a worry both Van der Velden and Tilly have dismissed because the persona is restricted to AI-generated films. Yet no AI-generated film has showcased an untapped market for such creative endeavors (though some still try).
The company disclaims on the website’s landing page that Tilly is not a “companion,” meaning she can’t do many of the tasks large-language chatbots can help with. She “wants,” as much as a computer can want anything, an AI Oscar category, yet she offered no viable way of picking up the golden statue. So, while interviewing a character like Tilly, I wondered whether I was indeed chatting with a striking harbinger of a digital future or what could be an unsettling relic of a moment in time.
Neither thought left me with any comfort, but to capture either conclusion, here’s our full chat, lightly edited for clarity: Hi, Tilly. My name is Corbin Bolies, and I’m the AI reporter for Variety. You’ve got quite the job title there.
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