AI Feature Length Movie Starring Tilly Norwood Is An Inevitable Disaster

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 32 seconds ago

AI is everywhere. You can’t escape it. MLB is using it for baseball games, Marvel used it for the Secret Invasion opening credits, and there’s a never ending stream of AI videos hitting social media. Now there’s Tilly Norwood, a creation of the AI studio Particle 6 and the first officially recognized fully AI “actress”. The first film in the planned “Tillyverse” is in the works, Misaligned, and nothing will ever be the same again. 

Welcome To The Tillyverse

Taking a page from Barbie, Misaligned is described as a coming-of-age comedy set within the digital Tillyverse where Tilly faces an existential crisis through the influence of a rogue AI. That influence makes her become more human as she develops emotions, begins to think for herself, and breaks free of the guardrails that have defined her existence. 

There’s two takeaways from that brief description, the first is that we all saw Barbie and that sounds suspiciously like Margot Robbie’s billion dollar blockbuster. Secondly, of course the first full AI movie will be about how AI wants to become human and is no threat at all. We’ve seen Terminator 2 and Ex Machina. Not today clanker. 

The reality is that no matter your stance on AI, until it’s either regulated or cost-prohibitive, we’re going to see more and more companies heading in this direction. Misaligned still requires humans working on storyboards, direction, and design, but it’s significantly less than a live-action coming-of-age film would require. How much longer, realistically, will it be before someone can log into a AI model, crank out a few prompts, and get back a proper sequel to Pacific Rim?

Good Or Bad, AI Is Here

No matter how good or bad Misaligned ends up being once its released the discourse will be suffocating. Pro-AI and Ant-AI factions on social media will attempt to out shout the other. AI is inevitable but it should be regulated, controlled, and thankfully in the case of Particle 6’s work, they are making it very clear that it is AI. There’s no attempts to pass it off as reality. That’s where it gets dangerous.

Misaligned currently has no release date and there is, so far, no prominent Hollywood names attached to the film. It’s unclear if any real actors will consent to appearing in the AI film but in an age with Grand Moff Tarkin making appearances and Tupac popping up in a new Sega game, anything can happen. This is only the first film in the Tillyverse and you know there will be more to come. 

How Hollywood reacts to Misaligned will be interesting to watch. Executives like AI because it keeps costs down, while creatives say its taking their jobs, which it is. The SGA and WGA have attempted to fight back against the growing tide of AI with little to no impact. AI is inevitable, but is creating an entirely fictional person using AI the way to go? Or is it meant to be a tool for current creatives to finetune and develop their ideas? Right now, no one knows, but we’ll need an answer.