The Hollywood buzz around Tilly Norwood, introduced on Saturday at a film industry conference in Zurich, and the union's scathing reaction to it reflected the dread many in the creative community feel about the intersection of artificial intelligence and show business.
The official Tilly Norwood launch consisted of a 20-second appearance of the photo-real character - a twenty-something fictional ingenue bearing no particular resemblance to any real celebrity - in a brief video parody about making an AI-generated TV show.
Dutch actor-producer Eline Van der Velden, whose London-based AI production studio Particle6 created Tilly Norwood, said during her presentation at the Zurich Summit the project was starting to turn heads.
After months of facing boardroom skepticism, talent agents were starting to tell her: "'We need to do something with you guys'," Hollywood trade paper Variety quoted Van der Velden as saying. She said an announcement of a first-of-its-kind talent agency deal was a few months away, Variety reported.
Concerns about Hollywood actors and writers being exploited, and even supplanted, by AI-generated scripts and performers was a major issue in SAG-AFTRA's most recent round of contract talks with studios and streaming services.
Computer-generated imagery is nothing new to the film and television industry, and AI-enhanced software has more recently emerged in various effects such as "de-aging" technology allowing actors to portray younger versions of themselves.
The ability to convincingly replicate a feature-length human film performance with AI stand-ins is still seen as far off.
Nevertheless, the prospect of talent agents suddenly showing interest in AI-created figures stirred a swift denunciation from SAG-AFTRA, representing 160,000 actors, announcers, recording artists, stunt performers and other talent.
"Creativity is, and should remain, human-centred," the union said in a statement. "The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics."
The parody video, which first appeared in July, actually comprises 16 AI-generated characters in all. But Tilly Norwood - a winsome figure with shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, a British accent and her own social media profile - was the star.
A separate Facebook post attributed to the character exclaims: "I may be AI generated, but I'm feeling very real emotions right now. I am so excited for what's coming next!"
SAG-AFTRA officials were not amused.
"To be clear, 'Tilly Norwood' is not an actor," the union said in its statement. "It's a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers - without permission or compensation."
Van der Velden sought to assuage such concerns in an Instagram message, saying Tilly Norwood "is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work - a piece of art. Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity."
Van der Velden was more provocative in an interview in July with the publication Broadcast International, which quoted her as saying: "We want Tilly to be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman, that's the aim of what we're doing."
Not everyone is convinced Tilly Norwood packs such potential. Yves Bergquist, director of AI in media at the University of Southern California's Entertainment Technology Center, called the hoopla "nonsense".
"There is a lot of very understandable nervousness and fear out there about talent being replaced," he said. But judging from his own daily interactions with Hollywood executives, Bergquist said there was zero interest from "serious people" in developing entirely synthetic characters.
"Scarlett Johansson has a fan base. Scarlett Johansson is a person," he said.
