The Anger Over the First “AI Actress” Proves People Just Want to Be Angry

You know that old meme where someone posts a picture of a stick with the caption, "To prove people will argue over anything, here's a stick," and then the comments immediately fill with debates about whether it's a stick, a branch, or even a photo at all? Well, the latest stick is named Tilly Norwood.

Supposedly, she's "the first fully AI actress" and - according to headlines - she's about to be signed by major talent agents, ushering in the robot apocalypse of Hollywood. Cue the outrage. Emily Blunt is worried, Whoopi Goldberg is fuming on The View, and major outlets from Deadline to NBC are treating this story like it's the turning point for human civilization.

But here's the thing: if you take literally five seconds to Google her, you'll find Tilly's official Instagram - with about five photos of this "actress", and three painfully obvious AI-generated videos. One of them is a badly written sketch about being an AI actress replacing everyone. That's it. That's the whole thing.

It's not a career. It's not a movement. It's barely even a project. It's just some guy playing with Veo3 like the rest of us. Yet the internet - and Hollywood - is acting like Skynet just took over SAG-AFTRA.

Rage-bait in action

This is the cycle we’re trapped in:

Someone makes an AI gimmick.

A few blogs pick it up.

A celebrity or two weigh in.

Suddenly, the outrage machine is at full throttle.

It doesn’t even matter if the thing itself makes sense. In this case, it doesn’t. The very idea of a “consistent AI actress” is silly. If you can generate anything you want, why would you keep generating the same face across multiple projects? Why would an “AI star” even exist in the same sense as a human one?

But that logic doesn’t matter when the internet smells a protest sign opportunity.

Just so we are on the same page here - this is the level of AI we are talking about:

Do you get it now? It was a joke! It was a bad sketch. The video is even labeled “Comedy Sketch” but who cares? Let's get mad!

Actors vs. algorithms

To be fair, SAG-AFTRA has every reason to be cautious about AI. They just fought a long strike partly over this issue, and protecting human performers from being scanned, cloned, and replaced is a serious fight. But lumping a half-baked Instagram experiment in with real AI threats isn’t helping.

This isn’t The Matrix. It’s barely even Max Headroom.

And honestly, nobody’s going to the movies to see an AI influencer whose entire personality is a couple of Midjourney prompts and some janky lip-syncing.

The real problem

The actual danger isn’t Tilly Norwood stealing jobs. It’s the fact that every headline about her is written for rage clicks. We keep falling for it. AI is the ultimate “stick” - wave it around, and people will fight endlessly over whether it’s the end of art or the dawn of progress.

Meanwhile, the truth is boring: no, there aren’t AI actors replacing Emily Blunt. No, Hollywood isn’t secretly auditioning Midjourney characters. Yes, there will be more digital gimmicks like this, and yes, they’ll get attention until the next outrage cycle arrives.

Relax, everyone

Can we all put our pitchforks down? There’s no AI actress taking over Hollywood. There’s just a handful of AI-generated skits and a whole lot of people who’d rather be mad than look closely.

If anything, the only thing Tilly Norwood proves is that we’re desperate for something - anything - to argue about. Even if it’s just a stick.