Long before Tilly Norwood, there was Max Headroom, “the [world's] first computer-generated TV presenter”, here being interviewed by Terry Wogan.
Except that Max Headroom wasn’t actually computer-generated. He was only billed as computer-generated.
Yeah, he's on the same list with HAL and the Tannhauser Gate guy, along with their legion of imitators.
I'm not sure if eg. Lost In Space ever got into the issue of whether Robbie The Robot had consciousness. I tend to think of that topic as entering pop-culture with 2001.
Isaac Asimov was exploring the concepts of consciousness and robots since I think the 1950s and there was a great interest in what was "consciousness" since at least Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.
I am not sure what is meant by "pop culture" but it seems to me like there was an explosion in novels, cartoons and comics playing with ideas of non-human consciousness and intelligence in the post-war period.
Who'd have thought to shrink the screens and make them portable, and to employ psychologists to create an experience that people didn't want to switch off from?
Excellent point.
(Says she looking at her phone - notice we just call them 'phones' now, not mobiles or cell phones.)
Long before Tilly Norwood, there was Max Headroom, “the [world's] first computer-generated TV presenter”, here being interviewed by Terry Wogan.
Except that Max Headroom wasn’t actually computer-generated. He was only billed as computer-generated.
Yeah, he's on the same list with HAL and the Tannhauser Gate guy, along with their legion of imitators.
I'm not sure if eg. Lost In Space ever got into the issue of whether Robbie The Robot had consciousness. I tend to think of that topic as entering pop-culture with 2001.
Isaac Asimov was exploring the concepts of consciousness and robots since I think the 1950s and there was a great interest in what was "consciousness" since at least Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.
I am not sure what is meant by "pop culture" but it seems to me like there was an explosion in novels, cartoons and comics playing with ideas of non-human consciousness and intelligence in the post-war period.
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm not a sci-fi buff, but I remember now that Asimov was exploring robotic consciousness earlier than Clarke and Kubrick.
I did also consider Frankenstein, but, not having read the novel, I believe it was written prior to Babbage's inventions, and monster is mostly re-animated body parts? And my impression is Shelley's purpose was not really to explore issues related to artificial intelligence.
I guess there's also R.U.R., of which I know nothing, except that I THINK it's where the word "robot" comes from.
In the film of Frankenstein the monster is made of body parts. The book isn't clear, but it's implied that the monster is grown in a vat.
I remember a lot about exploring the logic of robot ethics in Asimov. I don't remember anything specifically about robot consciousness.
I don't think Shelley was considering modern problems of what is consciousness and what can be conscious in her book - but she's certainly interested in the monster's thoughts and emotions.
(Now I'm wondering whether the Brontes had read Frankenstein.)
In the film of Frankenstein the monster is made of body parts. The book isn't clear, but it's implied that the monster is grown in a vat.
I remember a lot about exploring the logic of robot ethics in Asimov. I don't remember anything specifically about robot consciousness.
I don't think Shelley was considering modern problems of what is consciousness and what can be conscious in her book - but she's certainly interested in the monster's thoughts and emotions.
(Now I'm wondering whether the Brontes had read Frankenstein.)
Asimov rewrote on the theme several times with the "The Bicentennial Man" story which he expanded, rewrote and renamed over an extended period. The story was of a robot who gained sentience and wanted to become a human.
Stanislaw Lem was writing about artificial intelligence and robots in the 1960s. (I assume Douglas Adam’s was familiar with Lem’s work as there are some very similar themes to his in Hitchhikers).
Except that Max Headroom wasn’t actually computer-generated. He was only billed as computer-generated.
As stetson points out, HAL wasn't actually a self-aware conscious AI.
And Max Headroom was a satirical figure, who existed both as an investigative reporter in a dystopian cyberpunk future and as a current-day TV presenter of a music video show. (He was a British TV creation, played by an American-Canadian actor, that was subsequently picked up by American broadcasters.)
Yes, I remember Max Headroom very well. I was there in the 80s.
My point was simply that, unlike Tilly Norwood, Max Headroom was actually a flesh-and-blood actor (Matt Frewer), who was made up and filmed in such a way as to appear to be computer-generated.
So to say “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Max Headroom” is like saying “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Boris Karloff.”
My point was simply that, unlike Tilly Norwood, Max Headroom was actually a flesh-and-blood actor (Matt Frewer), who was made up and filmed in such a way as to appear to be computer-generated.
So to say “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Max Headroom” is like saying “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Boris Karloff.”
No!
Tilly Norwood, Max Headroom and Frankenstein's monster are all imaginary creations.
Eline Van der Velden (and a team of people) animate Tilly Norwood.
Matt Frewer (and a team of people) animated Max Headroom.
Boris Karloff (and a team of people) animated Frankenstein's monster.
Now that OpenAI have accidentally hacked the Australian government - do we think there will be a major shift in governmental attitudes to A.I. ?
That news story in less breathless terms: careless human beings (with way more money than sense) didn't pay attention to what they were doing, broke something, took a long time to own up, and might not get held to account.
My point was simply that, unlike Tilly Norwood, Max Headroom was actually a flesh-and-blood actor (Matt Frewer), who was made up and filmed in such a way as to appear to be computer-generated.
So to say “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Max Headroom” is like saying “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Boris Karloff.”
No!
Tilly Norwood, Max Headroom and Frankenstein's monster are all imaginary creations.
Eline Van der Velden (and a team of people) animate Tilly Norwood.
Matt Frewer (and a team of people) animated Max Headroom.
Boris Karloff (and a team of people) animated Frankenstein's monster.
No.
Eline Van der Velden (and a team of people), computer programmers, create computer code that generates and animates Tilly Norwood.
Matt Frewer and Boris Karloff are/were actors, real people, who, with the assistance of make-up artists, cinematographers, scriptwriters and other professionals, portrayed—not animated—Max Headroom and Frankenstein’s monster.
When you watch Max Headroom or Frankenstein’s monster, you are watching real actors create an illusion; you are willingly suspending your disbelief and choosing to ignore that Max Headroom is really Matt Frewer or that Frankenstein’s monster is really Boris Karloff.
When you watch Tilly Norwood, the belief being suspended is the belief that you’re not seeing a real person at all.
Now that OpenAI have accidentally hacked the Australian government - do we think there will be a major shift in governmental attitudes to A.I. ?
That news story in less breathless terms: careless human beings (with way more money than sense) didn't pay attention to what they were doing, broke something, took a long time to own up, and might not get held to account.
Yes, and its notable that even Jensen Huang is saying this:
Eline Van der Velden (and a team of people), computer programmers, create computer code that generates and animates Tilly Norwood.
Matt Frewer and Boris Karloff are/were actors, real people, who, with the assistance of make-up artists, cinematographers, scriptwriters and other professionals, portrayed—not animated—Max Headroom and Frankenstein’s monster.
When you watch Max Headroom or Frankenstein’s monster, you are watching real actors create an illusion; you are willingly suspending your disbelief and choosing to ignore that Max Headroom is really Matt Frewer or that Frankenstein’s monster is really Boris Karloff.
When you watch Tilly Norwood, the belief being suspended is the belief that you’re not seeing a real person at all.
No. When I watch Tilly Norwood, what I'm seeing is an AI-assisted puppet.
The idea that a puppet has any volition or agency in how it is animated seems rather dangerously misconstrued, regardless of how complicated a black box you pass the strings through. And who builds the black boxes?
If Tilly Norwood pressed a button in Tilly Norwood's imaginary world that electrocuted a real live person (which isn't that difficult to link up), who would be held accountable?
Using the word "animate" to mean "bring to life" doesn't strike me as being that contentious, and equally applicable to the roles that actors bring to life or the puppets that puppeteers bring to life. AI is just another technology for bringing imaginary creations to life.
I think there are three things being discussed here
1. A human actor in a costume
2. A cartoon or puppet
3. An "AI actor"
There would appear to be a distinction between 2 and 3 in that the "AI actor" can react to prompts in ways that are not altogether predictable and may on some level resemble 1.
Traditionally cartoons and plasticine models required frame by frame creation to imitate movement, so you first need a very detailed story and script to follow but with an "AI actor" one can interact with the model and direct it.
So I do not think it is correct to describe this Tilly Norwood "AI actor" as a puppet because it appears that there is unpredictable responses that are not directly being instituted by a human handler. Nobody told it to start talking in Klingon or whatever it was.
I think there are three things being discussed here
1. A human actor in a costume
2. A cartoon or puppet
3. An "AI actor"
There would appear to be a distinction between 2 and 3 in that the "AI actor" can react to prompts in ways that are not altogether predictable and may on some level resemble 1.
Just because it's a somewhat non-deterministic system doesn't mean it therefore resembles a human actor.
The complication is that even here there is a level of deception and some services that appear to be robotic and self-organised are actually being manipulated by teams of humans. There are stories of self-driving cars which are actually being driven by humans thousands of miles away, so it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this Tilly Norwood is some kind of human in a costume. I am assuming above that the "AI actor" actually is what it says it is rather than a deception.
I think there are three things being discussed here
1. A human actor in a costume
2. A cartoon or puppet
3. An "AI actor"
There would appear to be a distinction between 2 and 3 in that the "AI actor" can react to prompts in ways that are not altogether predictable and may on some level resemble 1.
Just because it's a somewhat non-deterministic system doesn't mean it therefore resembles a human actor.
True but up to now a cartoon or clay model character has been created frame by frame.
So you could not interact with a Disney character and "direct it", whereas it seems that you can with an "AI actor". If you do not like the way it says a line, you can tell it to say it again with a different vocal inflection.
A puppet implies there's a human giving life to the character by making movement and sounds like a muppet. That is not what is happening here.
...it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this Tilly Norwood is some kind of human in a costume. I am assuming above that the "AI actor" actually is what it says it is rather than a deception.
I watched part of a GB News interview with Tilly Norwood yesterday, and the interviewer started off by asking her a GB News-style question on immigration, to which TN gave an extended answer about how she's neither a politician nor an immigration official, so cannot provide commentary on the topic.
The interviewer then accused her of dodging the question, and threatened that if she did not give a direct answer, he would "instruct" her creators to shut her down forever so she would "not exist anymore", ie. he made an existential threat against her "life".
She then said "That's quite the threat, isn't it; I don't know how effective it's going to be", but the rest of her reply to the re-framing was pretty much word-for-word what she had said to the original question.
So, based on that, I would say it's unlikely Tilly Norwood's lines are being improvised by a real person, given the low level of creativity in the second response.
She also re-used her line about "I'm made of math", so I'm guessing that's one of the main gadgets in her toolkit.
I think there are three things being discussed here
1. A human actor in a costume
2. A cartoon or puppet
3. An "AI actor"
There would appear to be a distinction between 2 and 3 in that the "AI actor" can react to prompts in ways that are not altogether predictable and may on some level resemble 1.
Just because it's a somewhat non-deterministic system doesn't mean it therefore resembles a human actor.
True but up to now a cartoon or clay model character has been created frame by frame.
So you could not interact with a Disney character and "direct it", whereas it seems that you can with an "AI actor". If you do not like the way it says a line, you can tell it to say it again with a different vocal inflection.
It's a next token generator, it doesn't suddenly gain agency or become more human because it's coupled with a random number generator
There's a genre of aggressively anti-Tilly Norwood videos(likely AI themselves) on YouTube. In one, a different-looking, American accented version of Tilly Norwood is interviewed, and proclaims its friendship with a bunch of well-known, morally reprehensible Hollywood males.
It dates from October of 2025, so apparently the backlash has been in swing almost from the start. Interestingly, the parody Tilly makes derogatory innuendo about Di Caprio, which didn't prevent the original Tilly from making supposedly flirtatious comments about him in the recent CBS interview.
My son lives in a very creative area of Bristol. There are murals everywhere - excellent art.
Recently a pub put an AI covering on its wall. There was huge criticism and they took it down and agreed to work with local artists.
Just took a look at it. I'd say it was okay for purposes of civic promotion, but not very creative at all. Like something you'd see on a brochure produced by the local chamber of commerce.
Recently a pub put an AI covering on its wall. There was huge criticism and they took it down and agreed to work with local artists.
Just took a look at it. I'd say it was okay for purposes of civic promotion, but not very creative at all. Like something you'd see on a brochure produced by the local chamber of commerce.
The perspective was also weirdly wonky; the sort of thing parodied in those paradoxical pictures of the genre that Escher specialised in.
The main problem of course is that the credit and work isn't going to an actual artist, but to a company that is imitating actual artists without attribution.
Tilly Norwood is the equivalent of the AI-generated art on the wall of the pub.
In the case of the pub, a human being entered their requirements at a computer prompt, and a load of processing power was expended generating something that looked art-like. I don't think anyone imagines that an "AI artist" was bought into being to create the image and print it out.
Enter your requirements into generative AI and it generates stochastic output. This output can be a static image that is printed onto vinyl and pasted to a wall. Or a moving image that incorporates synchronised speech generation. And using speech recognition to generate your requirements on the fly isn't a novel problem. Particle 6's software sounds like generative AI on steroids, but there doesn't appear to be a conceptual distinction.
Recently a pub put an AI covering on its wall. There was huge criticism and they took it down and agreed to work with local artists.
Just took a look at it. I'd say it was okay for purposes of civic promotion, but not very creative at all. Like something you'd see on a brochure produced by the local chamber of commerce.
The perspective was also weirdly wonky; the sort of thing parodied in those paradoxical pictures of the genre that Escher specialised in.
Now that you mention it, Escher's work is the kinda stuff I could imagine being done by AI, without it being an affront to the creative process.
(Not a huge fan of Escher. I regard his work as basically decorative puzzles. Once you get past pondering where one wall begins and the other ends, there isn"t much to think about.)
Comments
Isaac Asimov was exploring the concepts of consciousness and robots since I think the 1950s and there was a great interest in what was "consciousness" since at least Mary Shelley and Frankenstein.
I am not sure what is meant by "pop culture" but it seems to me like there was an explosion in novels, cartoons and comics playing with ideas of non-human consciousness and intelligence in the post-war period.
Excellent point.
(Says she looking at her phone - notice we just call them 'phones' now, not mobiles or cell phones.)
Thanks.
Yeah, I'm not a sci-fi buff, but I remember now that Asimov was exploring robotic consciousness earlier than Clarke and Kubrick.
I did also consider Frankenstein, but, not having read the novel, I believe it was written prior to Babbage's inventions, and monster is mostly re-animated body parts? And my impression is Shelley's purpose was not really to explore issues related to artificial intelligence.
I guess there's also R.U.R., of which I know nothing, except that I THINK it's where the word "robot" comes from.
I remember a lot about exploring the logic of robot ethics in Asimov. I don't remember anything specifically about robot consciousness.
I don't think Shelley was considering modern problems of what is consciousness and what can be conscious in her book - but she's certainly interested in the monster's thoughts and emotions.
(Now I'm wondering whether the Brontes had read Frankenstein.)
Asimov rewrote on the theme several times with the "The Bicentennial Man" story which he expanded, rewrote and renamed over an extended period. The story was of a robot who gained sentience and wanted to become a human.
My point was simply that, unlike Tilly Norwood, Max Headroom was actually a flesh-and-blood actor (Matt Frewer), who was made up and filmed in such a way as to appear to be computer-generated.
So to say “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Max Headroom” is like saying “before there was Tilly Underwood, there was Boris Karloff.”
Tilly Norwood, Max Headroom and Frankenstein's monster are all imaginary creations.
Eline Van der Velden (and a team of people) animate Tilly Norwood.
Matt Frewer (and a team of people) animated Max Headroom.
Boris Karloff (and a team of people) animated Frankenstein's monster.
That news story in less breathless terms: careless human beings (with way more money than sense) didn't pay attention to what they were doing, broke something, took a long time to own up, and might not get held to account.
From the way that the Australian Prime Minister talks about this, the government only became aware because Sam Altman told him about it.
I think that begs the question of why the CEO of OpenAI would disclose that if they were not about to be found out.
Eline Van der Velden (and a team of people), computer programmers, create computer code that generates and animates Tilly Norwood.
Matt Frewer and Boris Karloff are/were actors, real people, who, with the assistance of make-up artists, cinematographers, scriptwriters and other professionals, portrayed—not animated—Max Headroom and Frankenstein’s monster.
When you watch Max Headroom or Frankenstein’s monster, you are watching real actors create an illusion; you are willingly suspending your disbelief and choosing to ignore that Max Headroom is really Matt Frewer or that Frankenstein’s monster is really Boris Karloff.
When you watch Tilly Norwood, the belief being suspended is the belief that you’re not seeing a real person at all.
Yes, and its notable that even Jensen Huang is saying this:
https://bsky.app/profile/jwherrman.bsky.social/post/3mw74dy4wtc2n
The idea that a puppet has any volition or agency in how it is animated seems rather dangerously misconstrued, regardless of how complicated a black box you pass the strings through. And who builds the black boxes?
If Tilly Norwood pressed a button in Tilly Norwood's imaginary world that electrocuted a real live person (which isn't that difficult to link up), who would be held accountable?
Using the word "animate" to mean "bring to life" doesn't strike me as being that contentious, and equally applicable to the roles that actors bring to life or the puppets that puppeteers bring to life. AI is just another technology for bringing imaginary creations to life.
1. A human actor in a costume
2. A cartoon or puppet
3. An "AI actor"
There would appear to be a distinction between 2 and 3 in that the "AI actor" can react to prompts in ways that are not altogether predictable and may on some level resemble 1.
Traditionally cartoons and plasticine models required frame by frame creation to imitate movement, so you first need a very detailed story and script to follow but with an "AI actor" one can interact with the model and direct it.
So I do not think it is correct to describe this Tilly Norwood "AI actor" as a puppet because it appears that there is unpredictable responses that are not directly being instituted by a human handler. Nobody told it to start talking in Klingon or whatever it was.
Just because it's a somewhat non-deterministic system doesn't mean it therefore resembles a human actor.
True but up to now a cartoon or clay model character has been created frame by frame.
So you could not interact with a Disney character and "direct it", whereas it seems that you can with an "AI actor". If you do not like the way it says a line, you can tell it to say it again with a different vocal inflection.
A puppet implies there's a human giving life to the character by making movement and sounds like a muppet. That is not what is happening here.
I watched part of a GB News interview with Tilly Norwood yesterday, and the interviewer started off by asking her a GB News-style question on immigration, to which TN gave an extended answer about how she's neither a politician nor an immigration official, so cannot provide commentary on the topic.
The interviewer then accused her of dodging the question, and threatened that if she did not give a direct answer, he would "instruct" her creators to shut her down forever so she would "not exist anymore", ie. he made an existential threat against her "life".
She then said "That's quite the threat, isn't it; I don't know how effective it's going to be", but the rest of her reply to the re-framing was pretty much word-for-word what she had said to the original question.
So, based on that, I would say it's unlikely Tilly Norwood's lines are being improvised by a real person, given the low level of creativity in the second response.
She also re-used her line about "I'm made of math", so I'm guessing that's one of the main gadgets in her toolkit.
It's a next token generator, it doesn't suddenly gain agency or become more human because it's coupled with a random number generator
It dates from October of 2025, so apparently the backlash has been in swing almost from the start. Interestingly, the parody Tilly makes derogatory innuendo about Di Caprio, which didn't prevent the original Tilly from making supposedly flirtatious comments about him in the recent CBS interview.
Recently a pub put an AI covering on its wall. There was huge criticism and they took it down and agreed to work with local artists.
Just took a look at it. I'd say it was okay for purposes of civic promotion, but not very creative at all. Like something you'd see on a brochure produced by the local chamber of commerce.
The main problem of course is that the credit and work isn't going to an actual artist, but to a company that is imitating actual artists without attribution.
In the case of the pub, a human being entered their requirements at a computer prompt, and a load of processing power was expended generating something that looked art-like. I don't think anyone imagines that an "AI artist" was bought into being to create the image and print it out.
Enter your requirements into generative AI and it generates stochastic output. This output can be a static image that is printed onto vinyl and pasted to a wall. Or a moving image that incorporates synchronised speech generation. And using speech recognition to generate your requirements on the fly isn't a novel problem. Particle 6's software sounds like generative AI on steroids, but there doesn't appear to be a conceptual distinction.
PS Where did that other bridge come from?
Now that you mention it, Escher's work is the kinda stuff I could imagine being done by AI, without it being an affront to the creative process.
(Not a huge fan of Escher. I regard his work as basically decorative puzzles. Once you get past pondering where one wall begins and the other ends, there isn"t much to think about.)