Tilly Norwood: She’s Not Art, She Is Data.

The risk technology poses to human creative expression advanced another step recently with the appearance of Tilly Norwood, the pioneer completely synthesized by artificial intelligence. Unsurprisingly, her premiere at the Zurich film event in a comic sketch called AI Commissioner sparked controversy. The film was called “terrifying” by Emily Blunt while the performers' union Sag-Aftra denounced it for “endangering actors' incomes and undermining human artistic value”.

Many concerns arise with Norwood, especially the signal her “approachable” persona sends to female youth. However, the deeper issue is the construction of her face using real actors' likenesses absent their permission or notification. Her cheerful introduction conceals the reality that she embodies an innovative system for producing media that ignores traditional standards and legal frameworks regulating creators and their output.

Tinseltown has foreseen Norwood's debut for years. Movies like the 2002 science fiction film Simone, about a film director who creates the perfect actress on a computer, and 2013’s The Congress, where an aging celebrity undergoes digital replication by her studio, proved strikingly prophetic. Last year's shocker The Substance, starring Demi Moore as a waning celebrity who spawns a younger clone, similarly satirised the industry’s obsession with youth and beauty. Today, much like Victor Frankenstein, cinema faces its “perfect actress”.

Norwood's originator, the actress and scribe Eline Van der Velden justified her as “not a substitute for a real person”, but “a piece of art”, portraying AI as a fresh instrument, similar to a brush. According to its advocates, AI will democratise film, because anyone can produce movies absent a large studio's assets.

Beginning with the printing press to audible movies and TV, each innovative shift has been dreaded and denounced. An Oscar for visual effects wasn't always available, remember. Furthermore, artificial intelligence is already involved in movie production, especially in animation and sci-fi genres. A pair of last year's Academy Award-winning movies – Emilia Perez and The Brutalist – employed AI to improve vocal qualities. Deceased performers such as Carrie Fisher have been revived for after-death appearances.

However, although some embrace these opportunities, along with the idea of AI performers reducing production expenses drastically, employees in the cinematic field are rightly concerned. The writers' strike of 2023 achieved a halfway success opposing the application of AI. And even as leading celebrities' thoughts on Norwood are well-documented, as always it is less influential people whose jobs are most at risk – supporting and voice artists, beauticians and production staff.

Digital performers are a natural outcome of a society flooded with social media junk, plastic surgery and deceit. Currently, Norwood cannot perform or engage. She lacks empathy, since, obviously, she isn't human. She isn't “art” as well; she is pure information. Real cinematic magic comes from human interaction, and that cannot be replicated by machines. We watch films to see real people in real locations, feeling real emotions. We are not seeking ideal impressions.

However, although alerts that Norwood poses a wide-eyed danger to cinema may be overblown, currently, anyway, that doesn’t mean there is nothing to fear. Legislation is slow and clunky, while technology advances dizzyingly fast. More must be done to protect performers and film crews, and the importance of human imaginative power.