AI-Generated Actress Joins The Entertainment Industry

People are often either at home surrounded by blankets and snacks while streaming their favorite shows, or are flooding out of theaters while buzzing with excitement after watching a new movie. Every piece of visual media has something in common: human actors. However, a new star has joined the entertainment industry, and she is not human. Tilly Norwood is the first AI-generated actress.

Created by Eline Van der Velden in 2025, the intention was for Norwood to become the next Scarlett Johansson. Her existence has been gaining recognition and fame with the rising number of followers on her Instagram account. But not everyone’s perception of her is positive. Her work first started when she was featured in “AI Commissioner”, which was not well-received by many. Despite this, Norwood is about to be signed by a talent agency, resulting in heavy criticism among human Hollywood stars and the world.

The opinions on Tilly Norwood vary widely, but there is one aspect that most agree on — Norwood looks extremely realistic.

“Tilly Norwood actually looks like a real person,” said student Joy Zhu (11).

Some not only agree with this, but also find it difficult to distinguish AI from real humans in online entertainment or content. Due to this, some believe that in the future, AI will have bigger impacts on the entertainment industry, which may cause harm to human Hollywood stars.

“The competitions are already very heavy and adding AI wouldn't help the competition, but make it even worse,” continued Zhu, “And human Hollywood stars would probably have an even harder time trying to be famous or getting money.”

The underlying issue for many appears to be how human actors are not getting enough recognition and opportunities, and this situation may be worsened with the rise of AI actors like Tilly Norwood.

“As a teacher, I'm wholly against [AI replacing humans in acting],” said drama teacher Mr. Acevedo, “Because I cultivate young artists, I want people to have places to go, jobs that are worthwhile.”

The issue extends to more than this, though. BIFU actors believe that acting purely involves humans and human connection, which can’t be accurately replicated by generative AI such as Norwood. It will only provide less enjoyable and less genuine content that the audience will not appreciate.

“From my experience in drama, I do get to see firsthand and experience firsthand what it is like to put in all the work, getting into character, putting on performances for people to enjoy,” said student and actor Ronald Wang (10), “And I think that there's definitely a lot of inherently human qualities about that kind of experience.”

Mr. Acevedo happens to not only be a teacher at the Lower and Upper School, but is also a director, and his perspective connects to the others involved in the process of creating art.

“Acting is about human connection and human understanding, and when we take that out of it, it's terrifying,” continued Mr. Acevedo.

Unfortunately, more concerns have arisen than just the impacts this has on the industry, entertainment quality, and people. AI technologies, specifically generative AI like Tilly Norwood, are known to have negative consequences on the environment.

“It is wrecking our environment. It uses so much water, so much electricity,” said Mr. Acevedo, “We're spending trillions of dollars to build new data centers.”

Despite Tilly Norwood looking realistic, many view acting as an art that AI cannot replace due to the negative consequences on the audience, human stars, the environment, and the quality of entertainment.

“AI is replacing lots of different industries, but entertainment is sort of a stickier issue because entertainment is something that's more inherently human,” continued Wang, “It's not translatable into algorithms that can be easily learned by AIs.”