Before Xicoia, the “artificial intelligence” division of film production company Particle6 launched Tilly Norwood as an actor/lead actress in the short video clip “AI Commissioner” on July 30, 2025, dozens, hundreds, possibly thousands of others, amateurs and self-taught individuals, had already created various personas (or had resurrected various personalities) in exactly the same way. The capabilities (and reversals…) for constructing entirely “synthetic characters” were already known.
And yet it was the appearance of Tilly Norwood’s image (even though all 16 “characters” appearing in that specific clip are “synthetic”…) that sparked the outrage of SAG-AFTRA, the American actors’ union, announcers, presenters, etc., with 160,000 members: the bomb had exploded not next to them but right on top of them.
It is obvious that by mixing and digesting the visual material of the 20th and up to now the 21st century, the developers of complex algorithms will be able to build not only “actors” but entire simulations – with leading roles even for deceased divas (men and women) if there are no intellectual copyrights.
It is rather inevitable: there will be entirely “synthetic” film productions, as well as “semi-synthetic” ones: the actors (or at least some of them) will be human, and the rest will be computer-generated. It is quite possible that we will start seeing (if it hasn’t happened already) directors-out-of-nowhere. In the sense that they will be mere users of sophisticated algorithms, feeding the machine with some easily digestible script proposals.
How will (human) acting/performing be saved? Perhaps only through some kind of “spread” of theater – unless, in the meantime, holograms also improve…