The divisive digital “performer” is about to star in the upcoming Particle6 project titled 'Misaligned'. Get ready to roll your eyes when you read the plot synopsis.
The AI nightmare continues as Particle 6, the UK-based company which gave the world the controversial AI-generated “actress” Tilly Norwood, is officially developing its first AI feature film – starring, of course, Norwood.
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For those of you who haven’t heard of Tilly Norwood, she was created last year and dubbed the first AI “actor” by Particle6 and AI “talent” studio Xicoia CEO Eline van der Velden.
Norwood came under fire from Hollywood, with actors' union SAG-AFTRA issuing the following statement last year: “It’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers - without permission or compensation.”
They added: “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.”
In March, Norwood also made her music video debut as part of the Tillyverse, with Euronews Culture describing her song ‘Take The Lead’ as “audio poison”, adding that the track has a lyrical “petulance to it, progressively revealing itself as an insipid but alarming piece of AI propaganda.”
Now, we have Misaligned to look forward to...
Billed as a “coming-of-age story infused with existential AI chaos,” according to a news release from Particle6, the film will see Norwood play an AI being who is encouraged by a “seductive rogue bot from the dark web” to start developing “desires, impulses and ambitions of her own.”
“The more terrifyingly human she becomes, the more famous she gets, and, significantly, Tilly begins to develop shame that her very being has been built on the whole of humanity,” states the synopsis.
“The film will absolutely be funny, chaotic and self-aware - very Tilly,” Eline van der Velden said in the press release. “But underneath it, there’s something deeper about identity, performance and our very human fears around AI. And yes, art will most definitely be imitating life.”
In addition to the AI “performer,” Misaligned will feature a hybrid production team of real-life writers, editors and directors, whom Particle6 has “retrained and upskilled”.
“Our work this year has proven something we suspected all along,” van der Velden explained. “AI can support premium narrative filmmaking, but only with substantial amounts of human craft, skill, judgement and time. That’s not a limitation of the technology. That’s the point."
She added: "The filmmakers who thrive in the next decade will be the ones who bring decades of storytelling instinct to these new tools, and ‘Misaligned’ is where we put that to work at feature scale.”
No release date for Misaligned has been announced. However, if it’s anything like her first single ‘Take The Lead’, not only will it be another irritating reminder that there are those who take pleasure in devaluing real human artistry, but it will also serve a valuable memo for cinemagoers.
Whatever dross you've disliked on screen recently, things can – and are about to – get a whole lot worse.
