The First AI Movie Star

By Gordon Hoppkins “I’d like to thank the academy, my fans and Skynet…” – Tilly Norwood’s future Academy Award speech. You know how some folks say, “I hate to say I told you so, but…?” Somehow, you know they are lying. They just love saying, “I told you so.” Well, I love saying “I told you so” and I will never let you forget it.I can even tell you when “I told you so.” September 23, 2023. That was the day I published a column called “The Last Movie Star,” in which I hypothesized the movie industry was actively working to replace movie actors with AI (Artificial Intelligence).A trailer recently dropped for a new movie called “The Sweet Idleness,” starring America’s newest sweetheart, Tilly Norwood. Italian producer Andrea Iervolino is calling it, “the first film directed by a virtual director.”The director is “FellinAI” (cute). The flick’s star, Ms. Norwood, is equally digital.Iervolino issued a statement to quell the concerns raised by some that they were trying to replace human actors with AI, “I want to clarify that this new production approach — led by an AI Agent as director, involving digital actors created from real people, and applied to this project — is not intended to replace traditional cinema. Rather, it is an alternative method of creation.”Not surprisingly, the folks at SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), the union that represents actors, ain’t buying it, as shown in this recent statement, “SAG-AFTRA believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.” The statement also shows that the actors’ union has also finally noticed something writers have been screaming about for years: that AI bases everything it “creates” on the work of flesh-and-blood people, “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. 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.”“The problem with this, in my humble opinion, is that you are suddenly up against something that's been generated with 5,000 other actors,” as actor Whoopi Goldberg pointed out. “It's got Bette Davis' attitude. It's got Humphrey Bogart's lips.”I’m not sure if AI intends to pick out the best qualities of Humphrey Bogart, it would start with his lips, but the point is taken.To further rub salt into SAG-AFTRA’s wound, some talent agencies are reportedly actively courting Tilly Norwood. As I pointed out two years ago, why would the mogul who finance movies keep paying millions to spoiled celebrities whose contracts specify the temperature their Evian Water should be chilled at and the color of the Mercedes that carries them to the movie set each day, when they can use actors that can be turned off every day. Well, there may be one reason Hollywood may want to continue with its star system.Sean Astin, the newly-elected leader of SAG-AFTRA, recently told Variety, “With regard to AI, we have an extraordinary amount of leverage, because the audience wants to see real human performers in movies, TV shows, animation, video games, audio books and in all the other ways that we represent our members.” And that, my friends, is the big question. That will be the deciding factor. Will the public watch movies or TV shows they know are made by AI? They probably will, at first, due to the novelty. But will that continue? Only time will tell.The news media is facing a similar conundrum. Journalists like myself are banking on people refusing to trust AI news. But will they? Again, only time will tell.

Richard Clarence Lautenschlager

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