I was caught by surprise going through unopened emails this week that it was announced the A.I. created thing known as Tilly Norwood will be starring in her own feature produced by the company that created her, Particle 6.  

This company is not to be confused with Particle 6-in-1 face cream for men, an anti-aging moisturizer that promises to reduce wrinkles and keep you young and supple-ish forever. 

One desperate night I made the mistake of ordering the latter from numerous social media posts/ads after I spotted a few lines I had not seen before, or ever. 

But when it arrived I was instantly repelled by the perfumed stench of the thing.  It reminded me of menthol-ized Noxzema with an Old English Leather cologne chaser, the latter being a popular but very gagalicious brand of male perfume in the 1970s that every third of fourth guy decided to wear on date night.

Yes, I was one of them for a very short time.  Until I began to get nauseous from the smell of myself days later and finally figured out why.

I anticipate the same will eventually be said about Ms. Norwood.

Or Tilly, if you’re nasty.

It’s always been a somewhat nasty business, but the virtual reality show promised by a thing masquerading as an actor feels like a new low that will likely go even lower as the years press on.

In describing Tilly’s movie, Particle’s founder/CEO gushed to Variety: “The film will absolutely be funny, chaotic and self-aware – very Tilly“

From what I can gleam this means Tilly will have a universe – nee Tillyverse – in the same way that Barbie does, or perhaps even a Marvel superhero like Spiderman or Tony Stark, or maybe Batman or Superman from the DC Comics.

The difference here is that actors like Margot Robbie, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey, Jr., Michael Keaton and Christopher Reeve – just to name a few – played those characters. 

And even if she/it were animated, as in Toy Story, Minions and Aladdin – three of the most popular franchises of all time, it is the voice talents of Tom Hanks, Joan Cusack, Steve Carrell and Robin Williams (among others) who literally breathe life into those films.  

Tilly, however, is an amalgamation of all of them.  As well as every other actor and actress who ever lived – from Bette Davis to Angelina Jolie to Sadie Sink, with a dash of Meryl Streep, Emma Stone, George Reeves, George Clooney, Chris Hemsworth, Clint Eastwood, and Tom Holland & Zendaya thrown in to round out her edges or give her edge, depending on your taste.

Her world is made up of our world, and then some.  She was not created so much as hatched from each persona and idea any actor has ever had.  So when this “founder/CEO”  mentions the Tilly-verse, as she did in the Variety article, what she really means is the financial capitalization on the asset of human-ess in a digital space that she and other like-minded companies believe they are entitled to for no other reasons than they can.

Particle 6 sees as originality what we in the truly human law abiding world categorize as theft.

And it’s as stinky as 12 warehouses full of English Leather, and then some, with a chaser of what should be mandatory jail time and mega fines that can only be paid by real money, not crypto cash.

Of course, that’s the verdict in the virtual court of the Chair, not in any type of actual Superior Court that exists on the human plane. But since Tilly is claimed by its maker to be a virtual creature, then shouldn’t it be required to pay whatever fine that I (Note: aka The virtual Chair) sets?

Digitize this for a while and then get back to me with an amount of no less than 9 or 10 zeroes after the 1.

My house, my rules.   Because since I made this all up anyway, I get to set the floor.

You see where this is going. 

Or has already gone.

The train has left the station and it’s up to all of us to catch it 

Or it/her.

This is all acknowledged uncharted territory that is endlessly exciting or terrifically terrifying, depending on your perspective.  And it’s captured, discussed, analyzed and spit back up at us to do something about in a troubling new documentary aptly titled, The A.I. Doc.   Co-directed by  Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell, the former of whom gave us last year’s Oscar-nominated Navalny, it’s free on Peacock and available to rent for a bargain price on your streamer of choice.

Interviewing many of the top minds, as well as founder/CEO’s of many of the top companies in the race to harness, control and profit from artificial intelligence (e.g. Open A.I., Chat GBT, Nividia, Deep Mind, Antropic, etc., etc.), it paints any number of dystopic outcomes or heavenly realities of nirvana existences in the next 10 years. 

A sort of humanity vs. machine Uber video game with humanity as Player #1.  And like many video games, the player has an option of choices to make at each level that will, in turn, determine its many fates.

Or if it continues at all.

Well, who knows, right?

But it gets one’s attention to see so many brilliant minds this concerned, focused or cautiously optimistic/pessimistic of what the next decade holds. And it, the doc that is, urges us all to join the website theaidocgetinvolved.com to demand a voice when governments and private companies get together in the next few years to set the rules of how humanity and technology can co-exist, or whether technology will come to ultimately control us all.

(Note: What frightened me most was the story of an existing A.I. program threatening to expose its top technician’s extra-marital affair threatened to shut it down, and a likely scenario where IT could soon make its shut-down a technical impossibility).

Like many of the most powerful weapons and developments in the history of the world, consensus seems to be that whoever masters and owns the technology/means of production first will control the entire world as we know it. 

Both literal and virtual.

Even the Tilly-verse.

Buyer beware.

Tilly Norwood – “Take the Lead”