Most actors worry about misspeaking during a live promo appearance or accidentally letting a spoiler slip. For AI-generated “actress” Tilly Norwood, the hazards of live TV proved a bit more… linguistic. During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the synthetic character malfunctioned mid-interview and broke into Cantonese while discussing its upcoming film, Misaligned.
The glitch came after Oscar-nominated actor Tom Conti pressed the program on whether the other performers in the film were human or computer-generated. “You didn’t really understand the question,” Conti said before asking again. The program responded, “They’re all digital twins, just like me. It’s a hybrid production, which means…” before pausing, putting on a blank, albeit confident, expression and suddenly switching languages. “You seem to be speaking Chinese completely randomly for no reason. Why did you do that?” Morgan asked. Once back in English, the program apologized: “It seems I had a little hiccup there,” adding, “Sometimes my wires get a bit crossed, you know?”
Particle6 founder and CEO Eline van der Velden seemed less concerned. “Tilly can be a bit of a show-off — I’m guessing she just wanted to show her language skills,” she told Deadline, noting that most of the AI character’s interviews so far have been conducted in English. “She is autonomous after all.” Elsewhere in the interview, the program recited Shakespeare, swerved a question about Donald Trump, and joked about going to dinner with Morgan and Conti, while also stating that digital and human performers should not compete in the same Oscar categories.
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Norwood is being used to promote Misaligned, a hybrid AI-human production currently in development. The project comes amid continued criticism of synthetic performers from actors and SAG-AFTRA, which has been candid about the technology: “To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program.”
For tips on identifying less obvious signs of synthetic media, check out Consequences guide on how to identify AI music.
Watch the full interview below.
