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Posted on 09/30/2025 2:22:13 AM PDT by CIB-173RDABN
Not long ago, a new name appeared in Hollywood chatter: Tilly Norwood. She looks the part of a rising young actress, the kind casting directors might call “a natural.” But Tilly is no actress at all. She is an AI-generated creation — a digital performer assembled from algorithms, capable of smiling, speaking, and captivating an audience without ever setting foot on a soundstage.
Tilly is part of a new wave of “synthetic talent.” AI agencies now maintain rosters of nearly two hundred digital actors, ready to star in commercials, corporate training films, or online campaigns. For the casual viewer, the illusion is seamless. You might never realize you weren’t watching a human being.
For Hollywood, this is not just a curiosity; it is a threat. Real actors get tired, demand contracts, negotiate pay raises, and eventually age. AI actors like Tilly never do. They can perform endlessly without rest, without unions, without residuals. For producers and advertisers chasing lower costs, the temptation is obvious. For human actors, it feels like an existential crisis.
The fear is not misplaced. From writers who worry about scripts being churned out by large language models to actors who see their likenesses cloned without consent, the industry is wrestling with how much “human” should remain in entertainment. If AI can convincingly play a part, what becomes of the people who once did?
But there is a deeper danger here, one that goes well beyond Hollywood payrolls. The rise of synthetic performers points to a broader truth: “seeing” no longer guarantees “believing.”
If a digital actress can hold your attention in a shampoo commercial, what stops a bad actor — political or otherwise — from creating a flawless video of a protest that never happened, a speech never delivered, or a crime never committed?
Today’s tools still carry subtle tells — an odd flicker of an eye, inconsistent lighting, or an expression that doesn’t quite land. But computing power increases, algorithms improve, and costs fall. Ten years from now, it may be possible for anyone with a modest setup to produce a fake so convincing that even experts struggle to tell the difference.
Hollywood’s immediate worry is job loss, and that matters. But society’s greater worry must be truth loss. If video evidence can no longer be trusted, then news, history, and our shared sense of reality become vulnerable. The genie is already out of the bottle, and while laws and disclosure requirements may slow some misuse, they only bind those who intend to obey them.
Honest newsrooms may label AI content — dishonest ones will not. In the wrong hands, the ability to manufacture reality is a tool for propaganda and manipulation. Tilly Norwood may be an experiment in digital entertainment, but she is also a warning: technology that can fabricate lifelike people and events will, unchecked, rewrite parts of our public life with consequences far beyond the soundstage.
Society will need stronger provenance systems, robust verification standards, and a cultural commitment to skepticism. Detection tools and authentication systems will evolve, but they will be in a constant arms race with the creative people building better fakes. In the end, the question is not whether AI will change Hollywood — it already has. The real question is whether we are ready for a world in which reality itself can be manufactured and truth rewritten.
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https://time.com/5497640/nancy-pelosi-chuck-schumer-split-podium/
Do you remember this video? Everyone thought it really felt off. It’s before anyone knew about AI or deep fakes but everyone said It felt really off. I suspect they were testing out AI technology at the time and wanted to see if people would fall for it
But the fear that AI will erase truth may miss a deeper point.
For decades we’ve leaned on video as if it were unquestionable — juries swayed by grainy footage, citizens persuaded by what they “saw” on the evening news. But video has always been a shortcut, and often a manipulative one.
Now AI forces us to confront that weakness. If “seeing is believing” no longer holds, we’ll have to do the harder work of corroboration and critical thinking. That’s uncomfortable, but it may sharpen our pursuit of truth rather than dull it.
And there’s an irony here: the cameras that once made us fear a “Big Brother is watching” world may lose their power, because AI makes even Big Brother’s footage suspect. The surveillance state only works if its evidence is trusted. AI may erode that trust, weakening the very authority that once seemed unassailable.
About two years ago, Anne Frank’s step sister said the famous “liberation of Auschwitz” video was fake and it was actors.
Heck they played that in my history class in high school.
https://twitter.com/MillerStream/status/1736616811003871254?s=20
One positive is that Tilly Norwood will never be abused on one of hollywierd’s casting couches.
At least now, when the Deep State accuses us of a crime using surveillance video, we can say, "You faked that with AI. I was at home watching Gilligan's Island on TV."
Great find. Thank you for posting.
Excellent points — I especially appreciate your insight that video has always carried an outsized authority, and that AI may force us to relearn the discipline of corroboration.
Where I think the real danger lies is in the transition period. Society still treats video as proof today, and that gap between perception and reality leaves us vulnerable to manipulation. In time, skepticism may indeed sharpen our pursuit of truth. But until then, those who master these tools first may shape public opinion in ways that are difficult to unwind.
I’ve gotten to the point where I distrust almost any video that looks even a little suspect.
The other day I saw one of three cats riding horseback (same horse, no saddle). The horse didn’t seem to mind, and the cats looked like they were loving it. Maybe it was real, but I have my doubts.;-)
And then there are the gymnastic videos that look flat-out impossible. I don’t think it’ll be long before no one trusts videos anymore.
Someone is creating fake talent contest auditions. They use a lot of real footage and then they insert a AI generated image performing. To be honest until the performer began doing something impossible that I realized it was an AI generated image. I then did a google search on the subject and discovered it is quit common. A lot of stuff on youtube, tictok and other sites are AI generated content.
Yep. There are a string of Britain’s Got Talent videos that are well done but obviously fake.
"Who is Tilly Norwood? World’s first AI film star, Hollywood’s ‘next ScarJo’ debuts at Zurich Summit"
If it’s on a screen it’s most likely manipulated sadly.
I had always heard, that with the advent of digital cameras,that photographic evidence was not admissable in a court of law. Now they are asking us to believe what is proven later to be faked?
This is interesting as hell. I can’t wait to see how all this synthetic writing and acting turns out. It can be argued that it won’t be obvious in anyway since most of what we see is formulaic as hell and so not terribly original.
On that very orange something or other Mobile commercial I think the actress at a phonebank with the headset on is one of these “actresses”. Something about the way she animates looks jerky, like there are frames missing or something.
On that very orange something or other Mobile commercial I think the actress at a phonebank with the headset on is one of these “actresses”. Something about the way she animates looks jerky, like there are frames missing or something.
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The technology is still in it’s early stages. They are counting on the fact people don’t really pay too much attention. However if you do watch closely and are able to slow it down you can often catch things like you noticed.
In the near future it will almost be impossible to tell.
There was a movie with Al Pacino that came out in 2002 called SImOne, where an AI actress named Simone took Hollywood by storm. It was very funny, and pretty interesting.
Yes it’s like the algorithm economized on the movement of the “actress”. The commercial features five or six over sixties who are obviously real people. As it switches between the real and the probable fake the difference becomes obvious. I did some animation in my youth and she looks like an animation to me.
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