Friday, October 3, 2025

When Pygmalion Meets Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated Actress

 



It should have been expected – an AI-generated “actress” has been created. The given name of this un-real creation is Tilly Norwood and unless told that it is a synthetic creation, she looks like a person one would meet on the street, in the grocery store, or in a dream just before sunrise.

But, is there such a thing as “un-real creation”? Isn’t all creation real, or eventually real?

.. As I watched the news on TV, I wondered if, forgetting about AI and associated technologies, the attraction humans may have to their own creations is integral part of the human nature. This attraction may be especially apparent when it comes to the creation of human figures and shapes, although creations via language, vocal expression modes and methods can facilitate personal attachment to those who experience their look or sound.

It should have been expected to finally meet Tilly Norwood because she is not the first creation by humans who synthesized a look-alike from various data sources of aesthetics, behavior and communication. Indeed, using AI, a group of Danish informatics designers have done magic of using data from all sources (movies and actors) to let the world see what I would call a “designer’s human”.

And many viewers, other than the actors who see some facets of their persona embedded in Tilly, have already expressed their attraction to Tilly.

… So, as I enjoyed the sunset with my dog snoring next to my chair, I thought about a couple of “ancestors” to Tilly through human creation of, and attraction by those who transformed the un-real to a mythology over the ages.

First, I recalled that in high school we had learned about the mythology of a Sylph which was proposed by Paracelsus, a Swiss alchemist in the 16th century.  The sylph was always a human-looking female, and ethereal. Interestingly, the sylph was supposed to be mortal but did not have a soul, yet it could gain an immortal soul by marrying a human!

We also learned that the alchemist’s nymph was renamed Sylphide in the 1800s in French literature. Now the ethereal sylph was “re-engineered” as a fairy, an attractive female.

Needless to say, we were totally captivated by the idea of a sylphide! And today, a slender, attractive and mysterious woman is called a sylphide in French.

… As my curiosity about Tilly continued after the sunset, I remembered the story of a famous Cypriot king, Pygmalion, who disenchanted from women in Cyprus, carved a life-size statue of a woman who had all the attractive traits he could not find in women. And, he fell in love with the statue and, having finally found his ideal woman, never married.

More, he was so obsessed by his own creation that he asked Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to give life to the statue, and his wish was granted. Finally, through his “putting-together” of the ideal woman, Pygmalion married Galatea.

 

So, Tilly was created using data from countless actresses, acting moments in films, and facial and body characteristics about famous women. All were put together with AI technology, and now she is being proposed to be hired for movie/advertisement roles for which she could be programmed and ready. Still, she is as ethereal as a Sylphide, and as much as a synthesis of desires as Galatea was.

Hmm. Is it too capricious to imagine that in the near future, perhaps through open AI codes, driven people could synthesise their own desideratas and create their own comfort with neo-sylphides, soulmates without a soul? 

… That makes me smile, as I still use mechanical film cameras for my photography, and spend hours in the darkroom to print a couple of photos the way I like…

 

PS/ Regarding the photo of the car at the top of the page – I took it in Florida, a few years ago. I could not find the right context to use it, so it has been dormant among my rejected photos box.

As I was writing this essay, it occurred to me that whoever drove that truck wanted something that reflected the aesthetics of his hidden secret. He used parts from the kitchen, the garage, the plumbing supply, and created his own image of a car.

I wonder if he gave it a name.

 

October 3, 2025

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2025

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