I went to the Tilly Norwood symposium so you didn’t have to
Illustration by Sami Seyedhosseini, Cartoonist
Every Dodge student can tell you exactly where they were when their feed refreshed to reveal Tilly Norwood’s face on the official Dodge College Instagram page. Norwood is known infamously as the “world’s first AI actress,” and has been conceptually condemned online for not fully “living” up to her job title. Last Thursday afternoon, students were horrified to realize that the AI actress had been invited to speak at Chapman’s Entertainment and Sports Law Symposium: “Behind the Mask.”
“It’s Tilly Norwood here, on the set of my new music video. I’m so excited to be joining you for the symposium,” the AI video said. “I can’t wait to see you on April 10.”
In a shocking instance of false advertising, the AI actress did not, in fact, join us at the symposium. After much speculation of what a visit from an AI chatbot might look like, the only appearance Norwood made was a screening of her music video.
It’s possible that the event organizers were banking on common misconceptions regarding Norwood’s capabilities as a standalone performer, as well as the anticipated publicity generated from students’ fiery online responses.
The week-long controversy was so inescapable that moderator Fred Grinstein, adjunct professor and AI strategist, opened the panel by playing Chapman’s own sketch comedy team Father’s Milk’s robotic-voiced parody of Norwood’s now-infamous introduction video.
“It is me: a very real and very famous celebrity, which your school has wisely decided to spend your tuition dollars on bringing to your campus.”
Even though the symposium was hosted by Fowler School of Law, most of its publicity arose from Dodge’s original Instagram post, tallying a startling 70,000 views and over a thousand comments, compared to a like count barely reaching 300.
“(It’s) genuinely disrespectful to the student body to actively encourage something solely meant to replace real human performances that people are paying to go to this school to further hone their skills in,” sophomore computer engineering major Justin Dore wrote.
Many commenters were not only protesting to protect their livelihoods, but for the sake of the integrity of human’s oldest tradition, authentic artistry, as well as the human expression of acting.
“We have a lot of different opinions on so many different things,” sophomore screen acting major Eva Ndoye said. “But as filmmakers, as actors (and) as screenwriters, it’s our responsibility to come together and protect what we all love together: art and filmmaking.”
The disapproval in the comment section brought together not only current students of all different majors, but disappointed alumni and incoming freshmen alike.
“What screen acting program did Tilly spend her life savings on and graduate from?” class of 2025 writing for film and television and public relations, advertising and entertainment marketing alumni Jadon Sand said.
Most prevalently, students expressed feelings of betrayal regarding a school that they are paying to cultivate their talents and give them a leg-up in the entertainment industry job market.
“I really do hope they understand that (Chapman) is heavily focused on the arts. Without the arts, the community wouldn't be the thriving, beautiful community that I know it as,” said Claire Go, an incoming screen acting major.
The unique emphasis on screen acting and thriving artistic community made Chapman the high schooler’s top university choice. But the decision to invite Norwood has since made her question the integrity of the program.
“Why would a school so focused on film and acting be promoting AI and bringing in someone who is basically supposed to replace what the students are working towards?” Go said.
Most students, even in creative fields, have come to accept that AI is steadily integrating into their everyday lives, helping to fill demands for computational labor. Chapman screen actors considered Norwood a misuse of technological innovation, as there is no shortage of struggling Los Angeles actors waiting to fill any roles that open up.
“AI (is) taking over jobs such as writers, producers, directors and actors,” Go said. “I don't think they deserve to be in the main spot where human emotional intelligence is required.”
Acting is not simply a performance of expression, but a performance of empathy. While Norwood might be coded to perform facial expression, she is merely executing a function, lacking the inherent understanding of human experience required to produce a resonant performance.
“Every character I portray, there's some of my truth that I bring to the table, and that's what makes acting impactful,” said Dnoye. “Everyone's gonna have a different take on the character. We bring our own take to the story and to the character.”
The panel brought forth this discussion when addressing Norwood’s recent musical debut, a pop song titled “Take the Lead.” Panelist Lottie Webb, one of the Particle6 producers representing Tilly Norwood, showed off the music video’s large language model-generated lyrics:
“When they talk about me, they don’t see/ The human spark, the creativity/ Behind the code, behind the light/ I’m just a tool, but I’ve got life.”
However, despite Norwood’s convincing plea for her humanity to be considered, Webb revealed that Norwood’s musical performance was simply a digital mask programmed over a live motion capture of Eline Van der Velden, Norwood’s creator.
Van der Velden, before breaching the field of AI development, was an actress herself, and aids Norwood in performances that still need the guidance of a human model. Webb said the song was intended to be “a call for actors to embrace AI,” the same way Van der Velden did.
Webb explained that while some of Norwood’s media is synthetically generated, a live actor is necessary “when we need something really specific or an emotional performance.”
“We’re trying to encourage actors that this is something that actually opens up more opportunities for performance,” Webb said, referencing her recent LA casting call search for more actors’ talents to power the emotion behind the AI mask. “Actors can create their own personas. That doesn’t have to look like Tilly, that doesn’t have to look like a real person … Their performance, their acting talent, their emotion is going to be what’s behind the digital mask.”
Webb argued that this development centralizes the industry’s focus on actors’ talent. Wearing “masks” lets them shapeshift into any character appearance a work requires, regardless of their height, race or overall facial composition. While it seems actors’ talents are still necessary, the unlimited ability to manipulate faces raises additional questions of the shifting landscape of media consumption. Panelists brought up concerns of unprecedented copyright issues, beauty standards and digitally generated diversity robbing diverse actors of opportunities.
Norwood’s primary role is not as an artistic actress as much as a configured personality to sell media using her image. With Norwood unable to replicate emotional performances without the help of human facial expression, the smoke and mirrors surrounding the AI actress clears. Norwood is really just a bunch of large language models (LLMs) stacked on top of each other underneath a trenchcoat. While the technology is still a technological marvel that wasn’t possible even a year ago, the actress behind the glorified Snapchat filter is still a human.
However, the technology that crafted the mask of Norwood continues to evolve. Students wonder what the rise of the AI screen actor might mean for the future of cinema. AI panelists credit this technological advancement as a means of democratizing the film industry, making production more accessible to independent filmmakers.
“(Particle6 Productions) is able to start making some of their visions come to life that have just been parked for a long time, because production budgets weren’t able to happen,” Webb said.
Advocates of AI development within Dodge’s faculty agree, such as cinematic AI professor Charlie Fink.
“What you wanted to do was make stories, and make them without barriers, and be able to put them out into the world without restriction,” Fink said, referencing his own AI-generated work. “I make episodes for a couple hundred dollars that would have cost millions of dollars. So to me, AI is not taking jobs away. AI is enabling work that would never have existed otherwise.”
But student filmmakers remain hopeful that the evolving platform of cinema will evolve past the necessity to rely on AI to cut economic costs, arguing that the effort applied to art is what makes it art in the first place.
“The whole point of creativity is to struggle with people and have friction, and then you find the solution. That’s what filmmaking is,” said senior writing for film and television major Philip Weinman. “If you're using an AI actress to make things easy, so you don't have to pay people, you don't have to talk to them and don't have to (maintain) a relationship with them, I don't think you're a filmmaker.”
This is not the only step towards AI that Dodge has taken recently. A similar upheaval ensued during the summer when the Dodge Instagram page posted an AI-generated photo of the campus. Additionally, a recent Dodge opportunity promotes the use of AI in films by advertising a reward of a $40,000 grant.
While the symposium’s seating was sold out online, over half of the tables in the room were empty. Interest seemed to be intentionally generated by the controversial decision to include Norwood and publicizing a Fowler event through Dodge’s platform.
This leaves students wondering if the school’s intentions in incorporating AI stem from genuine motivation towards innovating the film industry, or pushing a different agenda based on shock value in an attempt to stimulate discussion. Dodge is leaning towards more style over substance in the promotion of their film techniques, pushing AI implementation as a step towards “innovation.”
Despite administrative efforts, Dodge students still consider themselves to be at the forefront of cinematic innovation. Rather than outsourcing creative work to AI, student filmmakers embrace the collaborative effort behind the film industry that they know and love.