S1m0ne is a fictional film starring Al Pacino, Winona Ryder and Evan Rachel Wood that was released in 2002. The plot of this film is that a director creates a virtual actress that is completely generated by computers to replace human actors. The promotional gimmick of this film is that CGI technology at that time was powerful enough to produce the character of S1m0ne but in reality she is played by the new talent Rachel Roberts.
Twenty-three years have passed and the fictional film S1m0ne has now become a reality when Tilly Norwood was announced as the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) actress at the Zurich Film Festival. Although she is just a design of the firm Xicoia, Norwood has reportedly caught the attention of several acting agencies who want to make her a client who acts in real films.
Reaction from real actors and film fans has been generally negative because it is seen as an attempt to replace real human talent with digital actors. In Hollywood, the reaction was more negative because a few years ago, SAG-AFTRA members went on strike for several months to ensure that film studios did not use 3D scans of actors and writers' work to generate AI characters and scripts.
After receiving industry ridicule, Tilly Norwood's Instagram account released a statement saying that it was just an art experiment to see if the public could accept the existence of AI actors.
The use of generative AI in the entertainment industry cannot be stopped. In Malaysia alone, there are TV3 animated series, Cat Farish music videos and KRU and the film Abu Si Raksasa, all of which use AI technology. As in Hollywood, the actions of local professionals using AI as a smart way have received negative criticism from the audience.