The founder of the studio behind AI "actor" Tilly Norwood has defended the character amid backlash, saying she aims to spark debate rather than replace human performers. Dutch actor-producer Eline van der Velden, who founded London-based AI production studio Particle6 in 2015, said Tilly was made to be a talking point. Criticism intensified after Particle6 announced this month that Tilly Norwood would lead a feature film, "Misaligned," set in a digital realm called the "Tillyverse." The project is in early development; Particle6's tools can currently only generate up to 30 seconds of video, but van der Velden hopes to complete it within 12 months. She rejected claims that her work will cut actors out, stating, "Just because photography is here, doesn't mean we don't paint anymore." After Particle6 introduced Tilly Norwood at a Zurich film industry conference in September, SAG-AFTRA, the US union representing about 160,000 performers, condemned replacing humans with "synthetics" and warned that AI characters may be built on systems trained on performers' work without permission. Van der Velden said Tilly Norwood was built with publicly available tools, acknowledging limited visibility into their training data. Particle6 is working with "very well-known Hollywood directors, writers, actors" whose identities are kept private due to potential backlash. Particle6 has increased its workforce six-fold in the past six months and plans to build "