AI ‘actor’ Tilly Norwood steps out in mind-boggling music video about how great AI is

AI “actor” Tilly Norwood just isn’t going to go away, huh? The AI-generated creation is back with a single and an accompanying music video championing AI.

The AI “talent” studio Xicoia launched last fall, and brought into the world Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated “actor” that Xicoia founder and CEO Eline van der Velden was trying to get signed by actual Hollywood talent agencies. Tilly Norwood and van der Velden received a wave of backlash at the time, with a SAG-AFTRA statement saying, “‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation.”

Now, van der Velden is back in the news with a single and music video for Tilly Norwood. Titled “Take the Lead,” the song is a response to the backlash that van der Velden and Xicoia received. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the song’s lyrics are inspired by an essay written by van der Velden about the backlash from Hollywood.

The video finds Norwood, in a constantly changing series of outfits and locations, singing about how people don’t see “The human spark, the creativity” behind its creators’ coding. “Take the Lead” includes lyrics like “They say it’s not real, that it’s fake / But I am still human, make no mistake / My soul’s in every move I take.” The song only gets more cringe the more lyrics you read.

The music video begins with a message claiming it was made by “18 real humans,” which included “prompters.” According to THR, the song was generated by Suno, an AI-generation platform that was sued by major record labels in 2024 for copyright infringement. (Warner later partnered with Suno because if you can’t beat them, give up and join them, I guess.) Particle6, van der Velden’s company, generated the video “using a suite of readily available AI tools, combined with its proprietary creative process. New techniques deployed include performance capture, whereby van der Velden acted out Norwood’s performance.” 18 real humans, huh?

“Tilly is, and has always been, a vehicle to test the creative capabilities and boundaries of AI — not take anyone’s job,” van der Velden said. “As an actor myself, I have loved bringing Tilly alive for this video and feel that the ability to now use performance capture in this way, to fully inhabit an AI character, is a phenomenal way to bring an unknown actor like me closer to the craft.”

Apparently, Norwood’s acting debut is coming later this year.