"I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a new paintbrush. Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories. I’m an actor myself, and nothing – certainly not an AI character – can take away the craft or joy of human performance."
Norwood is the first creation from AI talent studio Xicoia, a spin-off from Van der Velden's AI production studio Particle6, Variety reports.
During the Zurich Summit over the weekend, Van der Velden said an announcement would be made over which talent agency would be representing Norwood in the coming months.
Critics worry Norwood could replace human actors and actresses.
"Hope all actors repped by the agent that does this, drop their a$$. How gross, read the room," "Scream" actress Melissa Barrera wrote on Instagram.
"Not an actress actually," "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" actor Nicholas Alexander Chavez said. "Nice try."
"Movies are great but you know what would be better is if the characters in them weren’t played by actual humans but by AI replicas approximating human emotion," "Shang Chi" actor Simu Liu said on his Instagram.
"Pretty telling that the industries first venture into this was to create a teenage girl they could control," screenwriter Brian Duffield said on X.
"Maltilda" actress Mara Wilson added: "What about the hundreds of living young women whose faces were composited together to make her? You couldn’t hire any of them?"
"She was a nightmare to work with," actor Lukas Gage wrote, poking fun at the situation.
More than 21,000 people follow Norwood's public Instagram account.
