AI Actors and Digital Doubles: Consent, Pay and Disclosure

Two stories a few months apart show where the fight over AI performers is heading. In September 2025, a computer-generated “actress” called Tilly Norwood drew a sharp public rebuke from Hollywood’s largest actors’ union. In April 2026, one of China’s biggest streaming platforms announced a library of AI-ready performers, and some of the actors named in the coverage said they had never signed anything.

Neither story is about sexual content or scams. Both are about three ordinary questions: did the person agree, are they being paid, and does the audience know what it is watching. This post looks at those three questions. For the separate topic of non-consensual deepfakes and the laws that criminalize them, see our earlier post on AI Star Mode and deepfake laws.

Tilly Norwood was made by Particle6, an AI production studio run by Eline Van der Velden, which describes its creations as hyper-realistic digital avatars. Van der Velden said the character had attracted interest from talent agents, and that is what turned a tech demo into an industry argument.

On September 30, 2025, SAG-AFTRA issued a statement saying “Tilly Norwood” is not an actor but a character generated by a computer program, “trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation.” The union said it opposes the replacement of human performers by synthetics and reminded signatory producers that they may not use synthetic performers without meeting their contractual obligations. Particle6 answered that Norwood is “not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work.”

The union’s reference to contractual obligations points to the rules won after the 2023 strike. According to the Authors Guild’s summary of those terms, a producer needs a performer’s “clear and conspicuous” consent, with a reasonably specific description of the intended use, before making or using a digital replica, whether it is built from footage shot on the job or created separately. Using a replica outside the original production needs separate consent and bargaining. Synthetic performers, meaning digital characters not recognizable as one specific actor, trigger a duty to notify the union, with possible bargaining.

The 2026 TV/Theatrical Agreement goes further. Members ratified it in a vote that closed on June 4, 2026, by 91.42% to 8.58%, and it runs from July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2030. As reported by LA Magazine, it lets producers use a synthetic performer instead of a human only when the synthetic offers “significant additional value,” with an arbitration process meant to keep that to edge cases. The pattern is clear: consent must be specific, pay must be bargained, and synthetics are the exception that needs a reason.

On April 20, 2026, iQIYI CEO Gong Yu presented a performer database inside the company’s Nadou Pro platform, and iQIYI said more than 100 performers had joined. China Daily reported that, by that afternoon, several artists had issued statements denying they had ever signed any AI-related authorization. TechNode named the studio of actor Zhang Ruoyun among them and reported that it was pursuing legal steps; teams linked to other actors issued similar denials.

iQIYI said joining “only means they have willingness to cooperate on AI film and television projects,” and that each project or role would still need separate negotiation and authorization. That may be true, but it shows the gap between interest and consent. A performer saying they are open to AI work is not the same as licensing a face for a specific use, and audiences reacted when the marketing blurred the two.

California moved first. On September 17, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2602, which requires contracts to specify any use of AI-generated digital replicas of a performer’s voice or likeness and requires that the performer be professionally represented in negotiating that contract. He also signed AB 1836, which prohibits commercial use of digital replicas of deceased performers in films, TV, video games, audiobooks, sound recordings and more without first getting consent from their estates.

At the federal level, the NO FAKES Act is still a bill. Its latest version was reintroduced on May 20, 2026 as S.4591 and H.R.8915, and it would create a federal right to control digital replicas of a person’s voice and likeness, with a notice-and-takedown system for platforms and a new counter-notice process. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced it on June 18, 2026. On September 30, 2026, an attempt to pass it in the Senate by unanimous consent was blocked when Senator Ted Cruz objected over free-speech concerns, according to reporting that cites the Congressional Record. As of mid-October 2026 it has not passed either chamber.

For viewers, expect more AI faces on screen, and more fights about whose faces they are. The useful question is not “is this AI?” but “who agreed to this, and how do I know?” Studios working under union contracts have to answer the consent question in writing. Platforms outside those contracts may not, which is why labeling rules matter; our guide to AI-generated video labeling rules covers what disclosure looks like in practice.

For writers and small producers, the direction of travel is the same everywhere: get specific, written consent before using anyone’s likeness or voice; describe the use instead of asking for a blank check; expect to pay for reuse; and keep records. Fully invented characters are the low-risk default; our guide to how AI short dramas are made walks through the production side. If you are wondering who owns the words in an AI-assisted script, that is a separate question, covered in who owns an AI-assisted story.

This is a plain-language overview, not legal advice. Rules differ by country and contract, and several are still changing.

ShortFling does not cast real performers’ likenesses, and it is not an AI chat or companion app. AI Star Mode, a planned feature that would put a user into a short-drama template, is waitlist-only at /features/ai-star. It is being designed around one rule: your own face only, never anyone else’s.

Our vertical drama catalog on /browse lists 12 series, all marked coming soon with no playable episodes yet; you can sign up to be notified. What is live today is reading and writing: the fiction library and the AI-assisted editor, where every character must be an adult and every published story is reviewed first.