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Tim Burton’s 1996 film Mars Attacks! cleverly exploits a comedic trope involving the overly simplistic invasion tactics of a group of green, bug-eyed Martians. Time and again, they feign peaceful intentions, leading government officials to gather eagerly for what they believe will be a historic interspecies encounter. However, the Martians quickly reveal their true intentions by unleashing their ray guns, obliterating everything in their path. Even as chaos ensues across the globe with humans fleeing for their lives, the Martians’ English translators persistently chant, “Don’t run! We are your friends!” This persistent lie stands out as one of the film’s most humorous moments.
This Martian masquerade came to mind while watching “Take the Lead,” a new music video by the virtual A.I. persona Tilly Norwood. In the video, Tilly acknowledges her A.I. origins with lyrics like, “They say that it’s not real, that it’s fake / But I am still human, make no mistake! / My soul’s in every move I take!” Thankfully, the model wasn’t programmed with Shakespeare’s “if you prick us, do we not bleed?”—perhaps due to copyright constraints. Nonetheless, the message remains clear: Don’t shy away from Tilly!
Describing Tilly Norwood as if she were a real person feels misleading since “she” is merely a software creation. Yet, if I fail to address her by the name her creators have given, she might generate another equally grating empowerment anthem lamenting the injustice. So far, this might be her only similarity to a bona fide pop sensation like Taylor Swift. Promoted as an A.I. actor, it’s no surprise that the masterminds behind Norwood thought the ideal debut would be through a medium beloved since Shakespearean times: a catchy pop song and its music video. Classic introduction to acting, right?
In truth, the rush to launch this A.I. actress as a singer before any acting debut is strategic. A music video is short, often around four minutes, and requires minimal effort compared to a full-length film or TV episode. A.I.-generated music easily populates platforms like Spotify, while the generative-A.I. film sector is yet to make a significant mark, making this route an obvious choice for Tilly.
Yet, “Take the Lead” is not just another piece of A.I.-generated auditory fluff meant to mimic genuine musicianship without demanding effort from listeners. It serves as propaganda. This isn’t a revelation needing deep analysis. Tilly Norwood lacks subtlety: “It’s the next evolution, can’t you see?” she implores. “A.I.’s not the enemy, it’s the key!” She’s programmed to express grievance: “When they talk about me, they don’t see the human spark, the creativity.”
Of course, the real reason that this A.I. actress is hastily making her singing debut before she’s done any acting is that a music video can be as little as four minutes long – in fact, some could and should get away with being much, much shorter! – and requires (even) less effort (and somewhat less water) to produce than a feature film or even a TV episode. A.I.-created music clogs up Spotify quite easily and there has yet to be a generative-A.I. film of note, so it follows that this would be the chosen path for Tilly.
But make no mistake: “Take the Lead” is not just another piece of A.I.-produced sonic wallpaper designed to simulate the hard work of musicians without the not-at-all-hard work of the listener thinking about what they might want to listen to. It is genuine propaganda. This analysis does admittedly not require a close reading. Tilly Norwood has not been programmed with subtlety: “It’s the next evolution, can’t you see?” she pleads. “A.I.’s not the enemy, it’s the key!” She has, however, been prompted with aggrievement: “When they talk about me, they don’t see the human spark, the creativity.”
These lyrics that expect regular everyday humans to nod along vigorously in solidarity with their eventual robot oppressors were supposedly “inspired” by an essay by Eline van der Velden, an actress and comedian who founded the Particle6 Group (which is now advertising itself as an A.I. film studio) and who “created” Tilly Norwood through that company last year. Presumably this essay was plugged into the A.I. songwriting tool Suno, which a Hollywood Reporter article notes as the actual source of the song. Van der Velden also acted out Tilly’s “performance” in the video using some form of motion capture, which explains why the video is, at times, marginally closer to the targeted aesthetic than so many A.I.-generated film clips, which always appear slightly lacquered and uncannily “off” even when still frames could probably pass for photorealism.
You do not, however, have to hand it to them. Much of the video still has that unnatural computerized sheen; mostly it takes advantage of the fact that a lot of Katy Perry videos are nearly as ugly. That’s exactly what this clip looks like, giving lie to the lyrics’ assertion that “taste” factors into A.I. creation. Actually, the entire story of “Take the Lead” seems awfully muddled. If van der Velden wrote the essay that formed the basis for these horrible lyrics, and acted out a performance for the A.I. Tilly to “give” herself, and she was among “18 real humans” noted (if not named) at the beginning of the video who helped create it, then… why was generative A.I. used in the first place? Is the idea that it would have taken much, much longer to generate a terrible song and video without it? That these 18 people weren’t talented enough to do it without A.I., or that A.I. was meaningfully improving their ideas? Or is it really just that you can make “Tilly” sort of generically youthful and attractive in a way that a real person isn’t? All of this PR amounts to bragging that 18 people came together with A.I. to make something that’s not quite as good as a lower-tier Katy Perry video. Congratulations?
Then again, when Tilly starts belting out “we can scale, we can grow, we can be the creators we’ve always known!” her resemblance to Katy Perry becomes secondary to how much she sounds like Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi, who made a series of cringe-inducing song-parody videos extolling the virtues of crypto. It’s basically the same tech-world investor-driven nonsense disguised as collectivist populism, only Zuckerberg at least did the work of embarrassing herself properly, rather than creating an A.I. avatar to sing “we can scale!” in all sincerity. Just think: By this time next month, the technology behind Tilly Norwood might be able to create an entire unlistenable, unwatchable visual album! Please listen anyway! This person who doesn’t exist is human! We are your friends!
Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Guardian, among others.