Tilly Norwood isn’t like other girls. She loves iced coffee and thrifting. She lives in London and goes to “uni.” She’s an aspiring actress — and she’s also artificial intelligence.

The first AI actress debuted at the Zurich Film Festival last month, sparking controversy across the movie industry. Norwood herself is an unintimidating brunette, but the drastic shift she represents in the entertainment industry is unnerving audiences and filmmakers alike. Amid budget cuts in the School of Dramatic Arts, USC students who aspire to have a career in entertainment are going to go into an industry that is changing in unprecedented ways.

In an eerie Instagram post July 30, Norwood said she was excited to have her first role, claiming that she was feeling “very real emotions.” Many actors were appalled, questioning the ethical implications of using AI in film, the impact it will have on the future of human actors and the way it could change an emotion-centric art form.

Aspiring actors already face post-grad job insecurity, and this new development in acting technology may stoke even more anxiety about their future in the field.

“In this industry, there [are] so few jobs and so many talented people out there, and to know that more jobs were taken out by people that didn’t exist is frustrating,” said Kehara Edirisinghe, president of Trojan Actors for Film and Television. “[It’s] just so much about money, even though it’s a business that was founded on human connection.”

Unlike Edirisinghe, who is majoring in theatre, Norwood never studied acting, but she was trained on the work of actors who did.

“It completely erases people,” Edirisinghe said. “Sure, on the back end, they’ll be paid for being involved, but they’ll completely lose their sense of self.” 

Norwood’s creator, AI production studio founder Eline Van der Velden, defended Norwood’s existence in a Sept. 27 Instagram post, writing that she is not meant to replace humans, but rather a “creative work.” 

“Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity. I see Al not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool,” Van der Velden wrote.

AI is used as a tool at the USC Center for Generative AI & Society, with its “AI for Media & Storytelling” initiative exploring the applications and implications of AI technology in journalism and cinema.

According to Holly Willis, chair of the Media Arts + Practice division at the School of Cinematic Arts, and the co-director of AIMS, the initiative has used generative AI to create previews of what a film might look like, in writing screenplays, and for extending images or scenes. As they research the helpful ways AI can be used, she said they are also looking into the harm it can cause.

“We’re thinking about the environment, we’re thinking about bias, we’re thinking about job loss,” Willis said. “Rather than just celebrating these exciting new tools or criticizing them, we’re trying to think more deeply about the entire ecosystem and what its impacts are.”

Willis said AIMS researchers are already seeing job loss due to AI’s introduction to the film industry, but simultaneously, more AI production studios are popping up, which allow storytellers to focus on doing the jobs they love and leave the tedious tasks to AI.

One student involved with AIMS, Xindi Zhang, a graduate of SCA’s expanded animation Master of Fine Arts program, created a project called “The Song of Drifters,” which went on to win a Student Academy Award this year. Willis said Zhang trained an AI model on her own watercolor artwork to create a shapeshifting animation in wave-like patterns. Her success was an example of how AI can be used as a tool to enhance creativity and artistic expression.

“She was able to do something on a very low budget, on a very short timeframe, to create a project that has a very powerful emotional content and effect on the audience, and she couldn’t have done it without AI,” Willis said. “It was really an amplification of her own visual language and her own storytelling agenda.”

As for actors, Willis said they could also use AI tools to expand their own artistic capabilities, and even license their performance as an asset. 

“What we’re beginning to see is the ability for actors to create digital doubles of themselves and therefore participate in this shift in a way that sustains their acting and what they bring to the craft that’s so important, which is the ability to communicate and convey deep emotional resonance and connectivity,” Willis said.

The development of AI technology is one in a long history of “radical shifts and transformations” of the film industry since its inception, Willis said. The current updates in technology will shape the ways that films are made in the future and the stories that studios can produce.

Tomm Polos, the Rodric David Chair in Creator Arts at the School of Dramatic Arts, said major television production companies such as Fox Entertainment Studios and Disney are heavily invested in AI technology, so he doesn’t predict AI is going anywhere anytime soon. Ultimately, it is up to audiences to dictate how quickly and enthusiastically it is embraced, he said.

The overwhelmingly negative reaction to Norwood may have actually secured human actors’ future, at least in the short term, rather than posed a threat, according to Polos.

“[Audiences are] going to be so overwhelmed by the use of AI or the sensations they get from the screens that they’ll want to go to live theater, or they’ll want to go to a live concert, or they’ll want to do these face-to-face events,” Polos said.

Polos said the entertainment industry relies on connecting with audiences to be successful, so while using AI can be cost-effective, entertainment entities and artists must ensure that they maintain a level of authenticity.

“The challenge is, how do you use the tool without losing your soul?” Polos said.

Studios and creatives will come to answer that question as they develop their own relationship to AI, but Polos said it will never replace the arts. Though those who use AI may be the most commercially successful, he said, artists will continue to be invaluable to the creative process.

“AI is a tool, a possible partner and definitely your competition,” Polos said.