Abstract
The birth of Tilly Norwood in 2025 as a synthetic or AI-generated actress marks a provocative moment: a flashpoint at which Hollywood's workers, writers, producers, directors, artists, musicians, and institutions are being asked to reevaluate what it means to be a performer. This commentary contends that Tilly Norwood both crystallizes and accelerates structural shifts in the entertainment industry. Her existence exposes tensions around hegemony, cost, authorship, culture, and emotional resonance that synthetic talent may shift human agency away from human performers. To understand this new development in the media and entertainment industry, we used the meaningful work conceptual framework. This framework hypothesizes that when people consider their work as meaningful, it leads to a positive outcome in their general life. In addition, we discussed potential concerns in the Hollywood industry related to regulation and co-optation to this emerging phenomenon. We concluded by proposing a new line of research in the media and entertainment industry that examines the growing tension between AI and human creativity.
Only a few years ago, before the advent of the large language models (LLMs), it was a commonly held belief that artificial intelligence (AI) can never replace the role of an artist (Ehrhardt, 2025). However, with ChatGPT, SORA, Grok, DeepSeek, Claude, Perplexity, Character.ai, Gemini and several other AI tools on the horizon, this claim has already been challenged and is being shaken to its foundations. Historically, traditional AI has served our needs through reactive reasoning. For example, a simple calculator could provide a mathematical answer to how much to tip at a restaurant, but it will not suggest paying more than 20% because of inflation. Generative AI (GenAI), on the other hand, is no longer reactive. It represents a proactive form of intelligence capable of mimicking human-like thinking, creativity, and even emotions (Holmström & Carroll, 2025; Wessel et al., 2025). Now, GenAI is increasingly asserting a creative presence. GenAI is being used in generating music, animations, images, texts, and even videos. SORA 2 has already made its presence known in the world of video storytelling (Adetayo et al., 2024). As GenAI edges into the domain of performing arts, it raises deep concerns among artists about creativity, labor, authenticity, value of work, and narrative (Ehrhardt, 2025). The birth of Tilly Norwood in 2025 as AI-generated actress marks a provocative moment: a flashpoint at which Hollywood's institutions, writers, directors, workers, artists, and producers, are being asked to reevaluate what entails to be a performer (Duff, 2025).
Recently, Hollywood writers went on strike following the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT 3.5 at the end of 2022. They were concerned about the impact of GenAI on their livelihoods, the strike lasted nearly 148 days (Kinder, 2024). Now, Hollywood actors are raising similar concerns, arguing that “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” (Morris, 2025, para. 13). Their fears appear well-founded, as recent reports indicate that talent agents are seeking to sign Tilly, an AI-generated actress, while movie studios are quietly beginning to embrace AI-created content (Duffy, 2025).
Tilly Norwood was created in 2025 by Xicoia, the AI division of the production company Particle6, founded by Eline Van der Velden. She is publicly described as an AI-generated aspiring London-based actress who maintains a social media presence, posts AI-generated selfies and cinematic scenes, and hopes to be cast in acting roles (Duff, 2025). As of March 11, 2026, Tilly Norwood has gained significant attention online, with more than 139,000 Instagram followers and more than 3800 YouTube subscribers. Two of her YouTube videos have received more than half a million views combined, while a song posted on March 10 has already surpassed 32,000 views. Following the release of her debut song, numerous news articles covered the project. For example, Robledo (2026) argued that Tilly Norwood's music video for the song Take the Lead has been receiving growing criticism of AI in the entertainment industry by portraying it as a creative partner rather than a replacement for human performers. Actors and labor organizations in Hollywood are raising concerns about consent, labor rights, and creative ownership, while the creators argue that Tilly is an experimental tool designed to explore new forms of storytelling and collaboration in the entertainment industry. Her first project was AI Commissioner; a comedy sketch produced entirely via AI tools (including scriptwriting by ChatGPT) and featuring 16 synthetic characters. Van der Velden has claimed that using Tilly could cut production costs by up to 90%. In Zurich Film Festival 2025, it was announced that talent agencies were considering hiring Tilly as an actress, a move that provoked intense controversy (Muir, 2025). Such a shift raises some fundamental questions about what will happen to human performers/artists if studios begin signing and promoting synthetic actors like Tilly Norwood? Will roles, wages, value of work, and bargaining power erode, or will new hybrid jobs and protections emerge?
This commentary argues that Tilly Norwood both crystallizes and accelerates structural shifts in the entertainment industry. Her existence exposes tensions around hegemony, cost, authorship, culture, and emotional resonance that synthetic talent may shift human agency away from human performers (Pulver, 2025). More broadly, the arrival of synthetic performers warrants a rethinking of digital storytelling itself. The critical question in this case remains how narratives will be constructed, embodied, and emotionally conveyed in an era when the boundary between human and machine is increasingly porous (Arif et al., 2025; Hermann, 2023; Scribano & Maria, 2021).
In the next section, we discuss the key issues such as authorship and hegemony, data bias, personality rights, industry regulations, and co-optation, and meaningful work. To understand this new development in the media and entertainment industry, we used the meaningful work conceptual framework (Bender, 2025). This conceptual framework stems from sociological literature which hypothesizes that “when a person experiences their work as meaningful this is linked to positive outcomes in their general life” (Bender, 2025, p. 205; May et al., 2019). Furthermore, we address potential concerns in the Hollywood industry related to regulation and co-optation to this emerging phenomenon. We conclude by proposing a new line of research in the intersection of entertainment and AI, which we contend as the evolution from digital rights to personality rights.
Authorship and control
In the domain of the creative arts and the Hollywood industrial complex, the notion of authorship has long functioned as a mechanism of hegemony. Dominant studios, star-creators, and production companies assert control over narrative meaning, cultural representation, and economic value (Bordwell & Staiger, 1985). Authorship is not merely the attribution of creative credit, but a strategic site of power: the author serves as both symbolic guarantor of originality and institutional anchor for rights, remuneration, and cultural prestige. However, the advent of GenAI complicates and unsettles this configuration. As machine-learning models generate scripts, imagery and even performance elements, the clear boundary between human creator and technological tool becomes blurred. These blurred boundaries challenge the traditional author—as-sovereign model (Fritz, 2025). This transformation disrupts hegemonic authorship by redistributing creative agency (if only in appearance) toward algorithmic systems, fracturing the locus of authorship that studios and star-talents once monopolized. Moreover, such a dramatic shift in authorship and control raises profound questions around who truly owns or controls meaning when large-scale AI infrastructure underwrites creative output (Pal Singh Guninder et al., 2025). In addition, if authorship is decoupled from the human subject, the hegemony may shift from individual authors or studios to the big technology companies which are racing for developing new synthetic artists (Jampol, 2025). Consequently, rather than being replaced, authorship is being reconfigured as a hybrid network of human, machine and algorithmic actors, which is forcing a reconsideration of power, recognition and legitimacy in an AI-inflected media ecosystem. With the emergence of AI actors, the ideas proposed by Laaser and Karlsson (2022) regarding autonomy, dignity, and recognition, the foundational elements that make work meaningful, may begin to fade. We contend that AI actors may contribute less to the greater social good (Dewey, 1988/1988).
Unregulated use of GenAI has the potential to significantly reshape the entertainment industry and diminish the creative and professional roles of human artists. As AI systems increasingly participate in scriptwriting, lyrics writing and singing, and content production, artists and musicians find themselves negotiating the boundaries between human creativity and algorithmic generation. In 2023, Hollywood writers ended their strike after reaching an agreement that introduced new regulations to safeguard their creative autonomy. Under these rules, GenAI may be used to assist in script development, but the final writing and authorship must remain under human control (Anguiano & Beckett, 2023). Based on recent developments in synthetic artists, it appears that writers were protected by the terms agreed upon at the time. However, the pressing question now is: what kinds of terms and regulations are needed to protect actors? In this context, McLoughlin (2025) raises foundational questions about authorship, creativity, intent, and the role of human cultural practice in art: as scalable, accessible AI-driven image, text, and video generation becomes a reality, we need to rethink what it means to create art, for whom it is created, and what its audience might be.
New frontiers of data bias
Recent research converges on the argument that AI both reflects and reinforces existing social hierarchies through deeply embedded data biases. Studies examining the intersection of data, power, and algorithmic systems highlight how AI technologies, often perceived as objective, are instead shaped by the political and cultural ideologies of their creators and the datasets they employ (Leavy et al., 2020). These biases can perpetuate structural inequalities, disproportionately affecting marginalized groups across domains such as predictive policing, healthcare, education, and creative production. Evidence shows that biased algorithms can misidentify individuals in facial recognition systems or unfairly assess non-native English speakers, exacerbating the digital divide and reinforcing patterns of exclusion (Greene-Santos, 2024). Similarly, analyses in scientific and policy literature suggest algorithmic bias as the systematic underperformance of AI systems for disadvantaged populations, demonstrating that technical neutrality is a myth (Saint James Aquino, 2023). Collectively, these studies call for a paradigm shift—from seeking purely technical fixes to engaging with ethical, social, and justice-oriented frameworks that democratize AI development and ensure representation, accountability, and equity in the digital age.
It is an open secret that data bias is a real challenge when it comes to digital content creation (Kantayya, 2020). Training data is drawn from existing cultural artifacts and human work. If those datasets embed biases or lack representation, synthetic outputs will amplify those biases. For example, Tilly Norwood's creation also embodies the same bias of fair-skinned Western personality. Her figure also embodies an image of a slim actress with fair complexion and wide eyes. Since GenAI is a global phenomenon (Ittefaq et al., 2025), its reach is far beyond Hollywood's traditional Western markets. Thus, AI characters carry the potential of either reinforcing stereotypical representation of Hollywood or they might help in overcoming such biases, if created smartly. It is also a matter of fact that, historically, Hollywood has promoted certain skin tones, body thinness, accents, and Western ideals of beauty (Khadilkar et al., 2022). Tilly Norwood, being British, blonde, white, and thin, may reinforce those Western beauty standards associated with success in the Hollywood industry. Moreover, studios and production companies have already begun signing contracts with the company to hire the AI actress.
Not copyrights but personality rights
The emergence of Tilly Norwood illustrates a growing convergence between copyright law and personality rights, signaling a major shift in how creative ownership is defined. Traditionally, copyright protected original works of human authorship, music, performances, scripts, separate from the performer's personal identity. However, AI performers blur this line by embodying a digital persona that fuses creative output with likeness, voice, and personality traits modeled on or licensed from real individuals. For example, in 2024 Scarlett Johansson, a famed Hollywood actress, demanded OpenAI to “disclose how it developed an AI personal assistant voice that the actress says sounds uncannily similar to her own” (Allyn, 2024, para. 1). Likewise, AI voice clones are becoming more and more prevalent in our everyday lives, which has irked several Hollywood actors who are pushing Congress to fight back (Gold, 2025). Steve Harvey, Taylor Swift, and Joe Rogan are among such examples “whose voices were mimicked by AI and used to promote a scam that promised people government provided funds” (Gold, 2025, para. 4). This trend continues to be the case in the Bollywood industry as well. For example, Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Jackie Shroff, Rajinikanth, Akshay Kumar, Sunny Deol, and Vidya Balan are among the celebrities who have registered their personality rights. As generative systems can now synthesize performances indistinguishable from those of human artists, the legal focus is expanding from protecting discrete works to safeguarding the performer's identity as an expressive asset. This shift implies that what was once governed by copyright—the song, the choreography, the character—may increasingly fall under the domain of personality rights, encompassing control over image, voice, and representation (Ochoa, 2023).
Another perspective to this new era of personality rights as a legal domain would be protecting personality rights of AI performers like Tilly Norwood. She has a unique personality, unique voice, and even her unique acting style. The birthers of Tilly would like to protect all of her personality traits so that other competitors don’t steal or mimic her identity. Thus, this debate of personality rights is no longer exclusive to real human artists but is also relevant to protecting the personality rights of AI artists. Some artists and actors are still suing AI companies and seeking personality rights injunctions to protect their name, voice, image, signature style, and digital likeness. In the United States, such protections often stem from the right of publicity and landmark court cases, while Indian courts have increasingly granted these rights to well-known personalities as AI-generated content and deepfakes emerge as growing concerns (Agence France-Presse, 2026; Yoo, 2019). See Table 1 for individuals who have registered their personality or voice rights or have filed related lawsuits. It is important to note that this list is not complete.
Individuals Who Have Registered Their Personality or Voice Rights or Have Filed Related Lawsuits.
Industry resistance, regulations, and co-optation
The strong backlash from actors’ unions, renowned stars, and media shows that synthetic actors are not going to slide into place unobstructed. Hollywood and Bollywood might adopt regulatory or contractual guardrails: limits on synthetic substitution, disclosures to audiences, royalty schemes, or quotas. Moreover, studios may try to co-opt AI actors in hybrid modes (e.g., human actors plus AI augmentation), rather than full replacements, as a foothold. The future might see human–AI co-star models rather than full synthetic casts.
The introduction of a human–AI co-star paradigm in the performing arts marks a pivotal transformation in the media and entertainment industry's cultural, financial, ideological, and industrial landscape. This hybrid model, in which AI performers/actors, like Tilly Norwood, act alongside human counterparts, reconfigures the ontology of performance and the material conditions of film production. From a cultural standpoint, the integration of AI actor's challenges long-standing conceptions of authenticity, artistic agency, and celebrity identity, as audiences begin to negotiate the legitimacy of non-human entities as co-performers. The deployment of AI performers promises increased efficiency in production workflows, reduced labor and post-production costs, and expanded creative flexibility through the synthesis of endlessly reproducible digital personae (Davenport & Bean, 2023; Xu, 2025). Yet this innovation simultaneously destabilizes established labor hierarchies and contractual frameworks governing performance, authorship, and likeness rights (Lim, 2024). Consequently, the traditional narrative of star power, which is historically tied to individual charisma and embodied presence, may transform into a hybrid construct, produced through the algorithmic collaboration between human creativity and machine intelligence, thereby reshaping Hollywood's notions of value of work, fame of stars, and cultural capital in the digital era.
Entertainment industry has always valued star power, persona, and the charisma of human presence. Synthetic actors complicate that logic. With AI talent, casting becomes more about tailoring the synthetic persona to the role (rather than casting a human with a preexisting persona). This could flatten or de-emphasize the relationship between actor and role. Furthermore, synthetic performers might encourage more formulaic or controlled narratives (less improvisation, fewer unexpected emotional flares) because creators will prefer predictability. On the other side, they might open space for more experimentation (morphing identity, branching versions). AI in the arts is not a novelty but rather a deepening of a long-standing interaction between technology and esthetic production. For example, in film and visual media, AI and computational methods have long underpinned tasks such as digital compositing, motion capture, face replacement, and digital doubles. On the textual side, LLMs generate dialogue, narrative outlines, or rewrite scenes. In the case of Tilly Norwood, a new push into the foreground of expressive presence, which means brining AI into roles traditionally associated with creative subjectivity, like actor or persona. Scholars exploring AI in creative processes emphasize the tension between automation and authorship (Garcia, 2025; Vinchon et al., 2023; Xu et al., 2025).
AI actors and meaningful work
The work people produced in the entertainment industry is generally regarded as meaningful and satisfying. For that, they need autonomy and opportunity to develop ideas and apply their intelligence and co-operative endeavor which benefit society. From this perspective, the AI actors represent an objective affront to artists’ subjective experiences—their dignity (we can simply use AI to write scripts faster and better), their recognition (we can create a Tilly Norwood that replicates your body to perform onscreen without compensating you), and their autonomy (you have less control over how GenAI will be used) (Bender, 2025). Historically, performing arts has been one of the oldest forms of art, which remained exclusively under the human domain. For the very first time in human history, this seems to be shifting away from human hands. With the promise of making creative arts much more affordable for content creators, the AI industry is posing a clear threat to the human artists who might find their jobs in trouble if this trend continues. Bender (2025) contends that it is not a fear of job loss but a loss of one's creativity and finds meanings in their working life.
Conclusion
Tilly Norwood's arrival is not simply a technical experiment but a crystallization of conceptual and industrial pressures, which needs a scholarly discussion and debate from the perspectives of gender, race, stereotypes and biases, agency and authorship, and meaningful work, to name a few. AI actors are much more than ideas or experiments. They show a sign to performers what is coming in the future. Tilly Norwood's presence—contested, rough-edged, provocative—forces Hollywood, actors and producers to confront emergent shifts: in power, labor, creative control, and narrative possibility. She accelerates tensions already latent in the deepening integration of AI into creative life. Yet synthetic actors will not simply supplant human actors overnight (Bender, 2025). The more plausible near future is hybrid: human–AI co-creation, selective use of synthetic extras or augmentations, and a gradual negotiation of norms, rights, and esthetics. The digital storytelling and entertainment industry will evolve. Authenticity will no longer be synonymous with biological presence, but with emotional coherence; narratives will become more modular, interactive, and reflexive; the locus of authorial control will shift from bodies and faces to models and prompts. Lastly, with the advanced versions of AI, we need to ask ourselves: what do we value in performance? Is it the trace of lived human experience, the flicker of imperfection, unpredictability, frailty—and can an AI ever replicate that? Or is narrative depth a question of structure, emotional logic, and imaginative resonance, regardless of the vessel? How Hollywood answers (and how audiences respond) may reshape the contours of storytelling in the post AI world.
Footnotes
Ethical statement
This article is not involved with human subjects. All subjects of study are either AI actors or names drawn from secondary, open sources. No IRB is required for this research.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
