Last year, a social media post by the fantasy author Joanna Maciejewska went viral. It read: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.” Maciejewska had tapped into a growing disquiet around artificial intelligence. Instead of assisting with tasks we’d rather not do, it’s cheapening the parts of our lives that are enriching and fun – taking creativity and draining the life out of it.
This cheapening reached a new low last weekend with the unveiling of a new Hollywood star-to-be, a digital avatar referred to as “Tilly Norwood”, at the Zurich film festival. Manifesting on screens as a young woman with long brown hair and a winning smile, Norwood is a “screen-ready” actor created using AI, hailed by her (its?) creators as “the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman”. The comparisons are crass, but the images of this digital creation, this Hollywood AI-lister, are nonetheless frighteningly real. Norwood has the fresh-faced, girl-next-door look that agents and casting directors can’t get enough of – think Olivia Rodrigo meets Glee’s Lea Michele. Remarkably for an AI creation, she also has the correct number of fingers and teeth.
