When the production company Particle6 debuted its AI-generated “actor” Tilly Norwood last fall, the move was not warmly welcomed by Hollywood.
“Good Lord, we’re screwed,” Golden Globe winner Emily Blunt said in an interview with the industry publication Variety. “Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop.”
If only Particle6 followed Blunt’s advice. Instead, the company has put out a music video for its AI character, featuring a song called “Take the Lead.”
This is not clickbait. Upon listening to it, I actually think it is the worst song I have ever heard.
I was prepared for Norwood’s musical debut to sound something like “How Was I Supposed to Know?”, the AI-generated song attributed to the digital persona Xania Monet, which turned heads when it made it onto the Billboard R&B charts. Xania Monet’s AI-generated music isn’t my cup of tea, even if its lyrics are supposedly written by a real person — I personally prefer music that could exist without an AI music generator like Suno. But Norwood’s song has unlocked a new level of AI cringe.
Eighteen people contributed to the video for “Take the Lead,” including designers, prompters, and editors. Yet the song itself is about Tilly’s challenges as an AI-generated character who critics underestimate, because they believe she is not human.
“They say it’s not real, that it’s fake,” Norwood snarls at the camera. “But I am still human, make no mistake.”
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That is, to put it gently, not true.
Music does not have to be relatable to everyone, but perhaps it should be relatable to at least one person. What’s most impressive about Norwood’s song is that the AI character’s team managed to create a song about something that literally no human will ever experience, because no person can connect with the feeling of being disregarded for being an AI.
The song, which sounds like a Sara Bareillis rip-off, opens with the lines, “When they talk about me, they don’t see/The human spark, the creativity.” The song builds as Norwood affirms to herself, “I’m not a puppet, I’m the star.”
Then comes the chorus, in which Norwood appeals to her fellow AI actors:
Actors, it’s time to take the lead Create the future, plant the seed Don’t be left out, don’t fall behind Buil …