Tilly Norwood is an AI actress created by Excoia that's getting interest from talent agencies. She costs less than human actors and comes with a built-in social media following. TJ Walker asks whether AI will replace actors or work alongside them, and tells creatives to learn production and writing to stay relevant.
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AI actress Tilly Nora Wood attracts talent agents. Here we are, more talent agents. According to Deadline Hollywood, the entertainment industry may soon have its first AI superstar with an agent. Actor and technologist Elaine Vander Velde announced at the Zurich Summit that her AI talent studio, excoia. I'm not sure if I'm really saying that the right way, but that's what it looks like. Is in talks with several agents about representing Tilly Norwood and are a fully artificially intelligent whatever that means. Vander Velden created Excoia earlier this year after launching her AI production studio, Particle 6 on stage. She explained that agencies are showing serious interest in treating Norwood like a traditional performer, complete with contracts and representation. Joining her on the panel was Verna Poom, who heads Luma AI's new studio, Dream Lab in Los Angeles. Both women suggested that while studios haven't gone public, many are already experimenting with AI in film and television. They predicted that major announcements about high profile projects using AI technology will surface in the coming months. Okay, what's the real message here of AI actresses getting agents? It means the future is here. And if you are someone who, who wants to be an actor and actress and just do that and not write and not produce and not collect money and not start your own websites, you're going to be washing dishes or waiting tables. Very AI is coming and it's taking over industry after industry after industry. There's no industry that would rather reduce cost than big entertainment. Okay, let's go a little bit deeper here. This is a fascinating story to know. What I can't quite get my head around is why would a big Hollywood company want to use an AI actress when they could simply plug in a few digits, a few prompts and create their own AI actress, AI actor. I have to guess here it's simply because a particular actress can build a following just like a real world actress could. Can build a following, can have followers on a social media platform and it's all about promotion. So if you are thinking about doing some new romantic comedy and you could cast an AI actress which is just a bunch of pixels, but this bunch of pixels looks comely, shall we say, and has 10 million followers on Instagram and 20 million followers on Facebook and 30 million followers on TikTok. And you know that if you pay, let's say, a million dollars to the people who own this AI actress, but you're going to get $5 billion worth of publicity from all the social media push because of the followers. I guess it does make sense. It seems kind of crazy at first blush, but it is a business. And Hollywood stars are always. And it's Hollywood agencies and Hollywood production studios and movie directors and producers are always going to be looking for ways of saving money and getting more promotion. Let's step back for a minute. When, when a Hollywood studio hires someone like a George Clooney or a Meryl Streep or a Tom Cruise, a part of the value and typically put into the contracts is that they have to go on publicity tours and go on late night talk shows like Jimmy Fallon and others and promote, promote, promote. Many actors will tell you that they see their jobs more as being a spokesperson for a creative product rather than even acting. Because there are many times when an actor may spend more time on screen doing TV shows promoting a movie than the actual amount of time they spent in front of a movie camera making it. And that's a part of the business. If you didn't like that, go off and do Broadway shows, go do regional theater. So that's not necessarily a problem. But what I can't quite get my hands around is, is it going to make sense for Hollywood directors and producers to just get an AI actress with the AI actor with the IDE idea that they are going to be able to go on talk show? We may have a point where there's an AI Jimmy Fallon or an AI Jimmy Kimmel interviewing an AI actress about the latest AI movie. I mean, it sounds pretty meta to me. It's hard for me to get excited about watching a show like that, but maybe that just means I'm old. Maybe that is better than real people. I don't know. What do you think about? I'd love to hear from you on this. If you have any firm opinions, strong opinions about whether you're going to go see movies, watch TV shows with AI actresses and AI actors, let me know. You can post your thoughts in the comments. You can always go to my YouTube community. You just go to my YouTube page and click on posts and you can find me by typing in TJ Walker Success or Filtered with TJ Walker. This does seem to be perplexing. There's some big players involved. What's the real message for you though? If you are in a creative field, especially if you are someone like an actor or an actress, I think you need to be scared. We all need to be scared at some level that AI is coming for us. Now, I've already created my own AI digital interactive video clone. So if AI if clones are taking over everything, at least I want to be the one programming it as I already have. And you may have seen ads for it. Tjwalker AI but what do you do if you want to be the next Robert Tenier or the next Meryl Streep? My advice to you is you gotta start planning now for a world where maybe there is no such thing as a Paramount, maybe there is no such thing as Hollywood. Maybe what we have is millions of people creating content. Some of it may be 90 minutes long, like a feature, some of it may be up on a big screen. But we live in a world where there are millions of creators. And if you want to be an actor, maybe you have to write the script, maybe you have to produce it, maybe you have to direct it, maybe it's. Maybe you're the only live actor in the show. And everything else is a digital creation. Is an artificial intelligent actor or actress. That might not sound like a lot of fun. It might not sound like your creative vision or why you wanted to go with. I'm sorry, I'm not making the rules of what happens here in artificial intelligence, but I am trying to observe and help you prepare and myself prepare as well. I do think we are going to see in the very near future a movie that gets mainstream distribution is in cineplexes around the US and around the world. And the entire movie was made in a 17 year old's bedroom without any cameras. Meaning it was all scripted, created using artificial intelligence, scored with artificial music, the whole bit. And it's going to be a huge success because at some level it's going to have an interesting story. And at some level, if you're staring at a screen, you may know whether it's real or not. But you know, nothing in a big action movie is real. This. They are real actors. But we're so used to seeing AI generated everything. What's the difference between seeing a Superman movie where 98% of what's on the screen other than the actor's face is created by AI and digitally versus 100%, it's not that much of a difference. So here's the real message now for everyone. Not just if you're an actor, you not just if you're an aspiring starlet or you want to be a movie star. It's really all of us. We have to think about whatever value we're creating. If you're an actor, you're creating the value of creating something of literary, cultural, entertainment value for people. If your goal is to entertain people and get them to stop thinking about politics and Washington and taxes and kids, that should be the goal. You've now got to think about how do I use every single tool imaginable? Because if you wanted to be an actor, you know, 100 or so years ago, unless you were Charlie Chaplin, you were performing live every night in vaudeville on a stage and having to tour around and make virtually no money. If you were an entertainer, you would join the circus. Nowadays, that's not what most people do. We're already using, if you like to sing, there was a time when you had to just go sing in front of people live. And then people started using technology. They used microphones, they used record player, they. They pressed records and then CDs, and they tracked tapes in there and now download. So there's always been a fusion of technology and entertainment, but really for all skills, because make no mistake about it, it's the transformation, the disruption, and that's just a fancy word for a whole bunch of people are going to get fired because some of the bosses are going to figure out how to save money and therefore make money themselves. It's coming in every single industry. It's coming in every single field. And this only way to do it is to run a little faster and stay ahead. Sorry if that's not completely a rosy scenario, but that is reality.
