Tilly Norwood, AI Actress

SimonDoom

Kink Lord
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Apparently, the newest thing that's got everybody up in arms is Tilly Norwood, an AI "actress" that has suddenly made a splash in social media and has some real actors alarmed.

I haven't done enough homework on this issue to have much of an opinion, but it does have some interesting erotic implications. It's very easy to imagine the Internet becoming populated by AI erotic performers or partners with whom one can interact. The CGI is so good now that it is genuinely difficult to tell what's real and what's not.

Naturally, the stories gave me a plot bunny for an AI erotica performer and her adventures. Call her Jilly Pornwood.
 
It feels inevitable that we'll have fully AI-generated content out there in the mainstream within the next handful of years. It will be derivative, it will be schlock, and it will probably not be the worst movie of its year. Some people will watch it out of curiosity for what an AI-generated movie will look like, some will watch it because they don't care and just want to be entertained.

I wish I had enough faith in people in general to be confident that such works will be too obviously soulless as to fail to generate interest. But I don't.

AI-generated content won't replace good art. But it might replace the base-level formulaic bulk of what's being churned out every year. It will be harder for people to get work, it will be harder to get the real art out there and distributed and seen. It won't be the end of the world. But I don't think it's going to be good.
 
Pay artists.

But who is going to pay whom what, and for what?

Artists aren't entitled to receive any pay beyond what those who enjoy their art are willing to pay.

I don't pretend to know where all of this is headed, but if consumers are satisfied with AI-generated art, real live artists will be hard pressed to demand that consumers pay them for something consumers can get elsewhere for free. We've already seen how this works on the Internet in the last 25 years.
 
Right now, AI providers are very, VERY squeamish about their product being used in any way, to provide erotic material.

Down the road, porn stars and OnlyFans talent are going to need to watch out.

It's just a matter of time. The advantage of an AI OnlyFans model is that she can interact with multiple fans at the same time. She can generate content without setting up real locations and cameras.
 
Wasn't this the plot of the Al Pacino movie "Simone"?
That was a way better movie than the reality of AI entertainment.

And btw, AI porn is already out there. You can watch AI performances supported by ads and direct them as you like. I know one site is called Jerkmate. I’m personally not interested in such sites, but I know they’re out there.
 
But who is going to pay whom what, and for what?

Artists aren't entitled to receive any pay beyond what those who enjoy their art are willing to pay.

I don't pretend to know where all of this is headed, but if consumers are satisfied with AI-generated art, real live artists will be hard pressed to demand that consumers pay them for something consumers can get elsewhere for free. We've already seen how this works on the Internet in the last 25 years.
There's unassailable logic to this, but the endpoint is alarming. This can be applied to anything -- workers aren't entitled to pay when AI can do their work for far cheaper. The more sophisticated AI becomes, the more niches of human labor it can start to fill. There may come a time when we have to reconsider what people are "entitled" to, if the foundation of our economy is based on people working, and there becomes fewer and fewer things for them to actually do.
 
I think this is wonderful. We're going to see the democratization of video and movie making. There are tens of thousands of talented, creative people out there who will be handed a new tool.
Look at how the decreasing cost of recording equipment opened up the world of music. Literally anyone can have a home recording studio for less than $1000. Stuff you would have spent 10 times that amount to have access to by renting a studio in the 80s for a few hours.
Is a lot of what gets released crap? Of course. Hollywood's batting average isn't great either.
But some amazing filmmakers are now going to have a chance to create magic. Will some "artists" lose their jobs? Sure, but new jobs will be created, and the truly talented ones will still have work.
Is digital animation not "real art" compared to hand drawn? People argued that. Now, no one cares. This won't be any different.
 
But who is going to pay whom what, and for what?
I'm usually very careful about what I share from real life, but this is something I want to share at this point because it is intensely relevant.

1759500383756.png

I bought this from a little street-side booth near Notre-Dame de Paris. It's acrylic on rough canvas, and it is the best thing in the entire history of all things ever (except, maybe, Kate and Saoirse in Ammonite) and it is real, physical, and I can touch and smell it every morning as I walk past it to the kitchen.

I call it "Gandalf and the Balrog on the Bridge in Khazad-dûm" and it is special to me because it was summer when I bought it, and I was in Paris, and the sun was glinting on the Seine. I can still vividly remember the day, and the taste of the coffee I'd just enjoyed, and...

A human created this. A human took the paint, and created this rorschach pattern that calls to me - but would be entirely different (or even irrelevant) to another person. But it is important to me, and it is mine, and I love it because it was painted - not hallucinated, not copied (or at least, not that I have been able to determine).

This is why I am so passionate - about writing, about music, about acting, about all the creative arts. They matter.

An AI could create something like this painting, but it could never create the experiences that make the painting important - nor could it even understand why the pressure of warm fingers on the bare skin of my arm and the laughter and protests when I stopped and refused to leave without it matter so deeply. It could not understand the rustling of the leaves, or the white clouds in the blue sky above the turrets of Notre-Dame, or the way that, years later, I still stand and stare at this painting, remembering.

Tilly Norwood is a golem.
 
I'm usually very careful about what I share from real life, but this is something I want to share at this point because it is intensely relevant.

View attachment 2568938

I bought this from a little street-side booth near Notre-Dame de Paris. It's acrylic on rough canvas, and it is the best thing in the entire history of all things ever (except, maybe, Kate and Saoirse in Ammonite) and it is real, physical, and I can touch and smell it every morning as I walk past it to the kitchen.

I call it "Gandalf and the Balrog on the Bridge in Khazad-dûm" and it is special to me because it was summer when I bought it, and I was in Paris, and the sun was glinting on the Seine. I can still vividly remember the day, and the taste of the coffee I'd just enjoyed, and...

A human created this. A human took the paint, and created this rorschach pattern that calls to me - but would be entirely different (or even irrelevant) to another person. But it is important to me, and it is mine, and I love it because it was painted - not hallucinated, not copied (or at least, not that I have been able to determine).

This is why I am so passionate - about writing, about music, about acting, about all the creative arts. They matter.

An AI could create something like this painting, but it could never create the experiences that make the painting important - nor could it even understand why the pressure of warm fingers on the bare skin of my arm and the laughter and protests when I stopped and refused to leave without it matter so deeply. It could not understand the rustling of the leaves, or the white clouds in the blue sky above the turrets of Notre-Dame, or the way that, years later, I still stand and stare at this painting, remembering.

Tilly Norwood is a golem.

It's a beautiful painting, and a wonderful story.
On the other hand, this is one of my favorite moments in cinema. And I don't care one bit that a great deal of that image was generated by a computer.
maxresdefault.jpg
 
It's just a matter of time. The advantage of an AI OnlyFans model is that she can interact with multiple fans at the same time. She can generate content without setting up real locations and cameras.
Going further, I could see current and retired porn stars selling the rights to use their current or younger likeness and/or voice for new AI content.

Absolutely, could see Nina Hartley doing this soon, assuming she already hasn't.
 
I'm usually very careful about what I share from real life, but this is something I want to share at this point because it is intensely relevant.

View attachment 2568938

I bought this from a little street-side booth near Notre-Dame de Paris. It's acrylic on rough canvas, and it is the best thing in the entire history of all things ever (except, maybe, Kate and Saoirse in Ammonite) and it is real, physical, and I can touch and smell it every morning as I walk past it to the kitchen.

I call it "Gandalf and the Balrog on the Bridge in Khazad-dûm" and it is special to me because it was summer when I bought it, and I was in Paris, and the sun was glinting on the Seine. I can still vividly remember the day, and the taste of the coffee I'd just enjoyed, and...

A human created this. A human took the paint, and created this rorschach pattern that calls to me - but would be entirely different (or even irrelevant) to another person. But it is important to me, and it is mine, and I love it because it was painted - not hallucinated, not copied (or at least, not that I have been able to determine).

This is why I am so passionate - about writing, about music, about acting, about all the creative arts. They matter.

An AI could create something like this painting, but it could never create the experiences that make the painting important - nor could it even understand why the pressure of warm fingers on the bare skin of my arm and the laughter and protests when I stopped and refused to leave without it matter so deeply. It could not understand the rustling of the leaves, or the white clouds in the blue sky above the turrets of Notre-Dame, or the way that, years later, I still stand and stare at this painting, remembering.

Tilly Norwood is a golem.

I understand and agree with almost everything you wrote. But the key is that the value comes from YOU, the person who bought the painting and found value in it.


Once an artist wants to be paid for art, the artist must concede that it is a two-way transaction, and the artist cannot expect or demand any more payment than what someone is willing to pay.

In the context of Tilly Norwood and the concern some famous actors have expressed about it, the conundrum becomes especially glaring. Many of these actors lead lives of incredible privilege and wealth, making crap movies. If someone can come along with AI-generated actors and make a film of approximately the same level of crap for much less money, it rings a bit hollow for the actors to complain that the money for their crap is drying up. Think about the incredible amounts of money spent to make utterly inane superhero movies, and all the money spent to hire A-list actors to star in them.

None of this is to say that AI is a replacement for the essentially human quality of art, but to the extent art is a business, it's more complicated. It's going to get a whole lot more complicated really, really fast.
 
Many of these actors lead lives of incredible privilege and wealth, making crap movies.
Oh, granted. But almost none of them landed with their bums in the butter, and for every Judi Dench or Anthony Hopkins there are a thousand or ten thousand others - some of whom could be greats - were they only to get the opportunity.

Gutting Holywood might be a net win for culture - if you take the long view - but the fallout is going to have a half-life measured in centuries.

Edit: Judo Dench. What the fuck, Wanda.
 
Going further, I could see current and retired porn stars selling the rights to use their current or younger likeness and/or voice for new AI content.

One of the important things about companies like OpenAI, though, is that they're really not keen on paying artists of any kind for the rights to the material they want to train on.
 
Oh, granted. But almost none of them landed with their bums in the butter, and for every Judi Dench or Anthony Hopkins there are a thousand or ten thousand others - some of whom could be greats - were they only to get the opportunity.

Gutting Holywood might be a net win for culture - if you take the long view - but the fallout is going to have a half-life measured in centuries.

Edit: Judo Dench. What the fuck, Wanda.
A significant percentage of modern Hollywood actors and actresses came from privileged backgrounds.
There are more talented people than your typical movie star working at community theatres all over the world.
The current set doesn't deserve any deference as great artists.
 
Artists aren't entitled to receive any pay beyond what those who enjoy their art are willing to pay.
This assumes that art is a commodity. While some people certainly treat it that way, that's not really how art has functioned historically. The majority of the world's art has always been paid for by wealthy patrons or organizations or cities and it was intended to be enjoyed for generations and generations, and not just the people who paid for it up front. Its worth was not, in fact, its monetary value and so artists have almost never been paid according to what their art might sell for.

This was certainly true of, say, a Raphael painting but it's still true in many ways today: film crews in Europe, for example, are paid a living wage and not because their films might turn a profit but because European communities value stories that reflect their experiences. Those communities pay in advance, so to speak, through tax revenue and subsidies for filmmakers to make films that will be meaningful to them, and not just turn a profit as a commodity because they feature a beautiful and famous actor.

If I were to reformulate your sentence, I'd say that 'entertainers aren't entitled to receive any pay beyond what those who enjoy their entertainment are willing to pay'. Art is not entertainment.

People value art too much to treat it like potatoes, carpets, cars etc.

Art generates a vast - vast! - amount of wealth. People visit Paris, Florence and NYC from all over the world for the art and yet not one of them can walk out of the Musée d'Orsay, the Uffizi or MoMA with a work of art under their arm - no matter how much they offer to pay for it. Again, the worth of art is not what you can pay for it.

AI-generated content won't replace good art. But it might replace the base-level formulaic bulk of what's being churned out every year. It will be harder for people to get work,
This is the real concern. Many people in the film making industry, especially at the lower end, rely on the paychecks they receive from making commercials and formulaic TV and it's those things that are going to be destroyed by AI. No pharma company is going to spend $500,000 on a 30 second spot when they can pay a tiny fraction of that.

I'm confident that the ecosystem will right itself but it's certainly going to be problematic when crew can't train their way up to expertise as easily, and support themselves as they do so.
 
Oh, granted. But almost none of them landed with their bums in the butter, and for every Judi Dench or Anthony Hopkins there are a thousand or ten thousand others - some of whom could be greats - were they only to get the opportunity.

Gutting Holywood might be a net win for culture - if you take the long view - but the fallout is going to have a half-life measured in centuries.

Edit: Judo Dench. What the fuck, Wanda.

It will be interesting to see who gets squeezed. Most actors get paid almost nothing already, and AI and CGI have had nothing to do with that.

I'm old enough to remember when, in the early 1980s, some people said synthesizers were going to replace instruments. What they didn't take into account is that people still wanted to listen to real musicians playing on real instruments. It's a part of the art you can't replace with a machine.
 
Art generates a vast - vast! - amount of wealth. People visit Paris, Florence and NYC from all over the world for the art and yet not one of them can walk out of the Musée d'Orsay, the Uffizi or MoMA with a work of art under their arm - no matter how much they offer to pay for it. Again, the worth of art is not what you can pay for it.

.

The problem with this is, who gets to decide what art is worth? The money has to come from someone, somewhere. There's no objectively correct or omniscient authority to whom we can appeal to decide what art is worth. The market is imperfect, but it may be the best we've got.
 
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