Exclusive | AI stars like Tilly Norwood and Xania Monet are raking in hundreds of thousands, much to the horror of critics — but their creators are hitting back | Latest Tech News
A fast journey to the toilet modified Eline Van der Velden’s life — and Hollywood — perpetually.
There, in the privateness of her porcelain escape, the artificial intelligence innovator was hit with a stroke of genius. Though it could finally irk the A-list likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne, Ryan Reynolds and top canine at the Screen Actors Guild.
“I remember it really clearly. In February 2025, I went to the bathroom, and then I came back to chat to the team, and I said, ‘This is what we’re going to do — make an AI actress. I think it’d be really fun,’” Van der Velden, a Dutch comedy actor and physicist, based in the UK, solely told The Post with a snigger. “We had originally [called her] the ‘Scarlett Johansson of AI.’”
Tilly Norwood’s life like, girl-next-door look despatched shock waves throughout social media and Hollywood. Particle6/Instagram
Van der Velden first dreamed up creating an AI actress during a random toilet break earlier this 12 months. Sportsfile via Getty Images
To engineer the fake Scar-Jo, Van der Velden and her workforce of 15 creators at Particle 6, a London-based AI manufacturing studio, immediately sprang into motion.
Utilizing 10 AI-generation instruments and platforms, such as DeepSeek, ChatGPT, ElevenLabs and Gemini, they drafted 2,000 iterations of their cyber showgirl before finally creating Tilly Norwood — a 24-year-old British brunette with girl-next-door attract.
The visionaries spent hours laboring over her identify, making certain it sounded authentically British and universally distinctive. For her comely appeal, they designed her physique to resemble that of a “beautiful, whitish-looking young woman” who’d resonate with global audiences.
Van der Velden says she’s grateful Tilly has triggered new discussions about the use of AI in the leisure industry but suggests AI detractors not take Tilly “too seriously.” Particle6/Xicoia
The consultants gathered data from a number of large language fashions — moderately than copying and pasting bodily options from on a regular basis people across the web — to create a near-perfect specimen for the big screen.
“I remember the moment I saw Tilly for the first time, and I was, like, ‘Whoa, that’s her,’” said Van der Velden.
“I remember just being absolutely gobsmacked,” she continued, including that Tilly’s “brain, personality and backstory” are still “in development.”
“If you haven’t had that progression, and suddenly see Tilly,” Van der Velden told The Post, “I can see how it can be very shocking.”
Infuriating is more like it.
The fake frontwoman’s current social media debut ignited a firestorm of calls from VIPs to “boycott” any companies representing AI expertise.
Goldberg — an Emmy-, Grammy-, Oscar- and Tony-winning actress — slammed Tilly and her ilk, saying, “Bring it on. You can always tell them from us. We move differently, our faces move differently, our bodies move differently.”
Reynolds, too, took goal at Van der Velden’s masterpiece, starring alongside a real girl named Natalie “Tilly” Norwood in a new Mint Mobile industrial, asking the brown-eyed woman, “You are real, right? Not an AI-generated combination of actors?”
Reynolds poked enjoyable at Van der Velden’s Tilly Norwood while starring in a Mint Mobile industrial with a human girl named Natalie “Tilly” Norwood. Mint Mobile
Lyonne deemed Tilly’s emergence on the scene as being “deeply misguided & totally disturbed.” The “Russian Doll” lead, who has pledged to use “ethical” artificial intelligence in her forthcoming directorial function “Uncanny Valley,” continued her rant, declaring of AI actors like Tilly: “Not the way. Not the vibe. Not the use.”
Blunt took one look at Tilly’s likeness and said, “That’s an AI? Good Lord, we’re screwed,” before calling the tech “really scary” and begging artificial intelligence savants to “please stop taking away our human connection.”
That outrage was compounded by SAG-AFTRA’s open vow to oppose “the replacement of human performers by synthetics.”
But Tilly isn’t a solo firebrand.
Bots-turned-overnight hotshots are on the rise amid the artificial intelligence increase, posing a risk to people hoping to break into, or keep their standing in, the biz.
Breaking Rust is another breakout star from the AI world, incomes spots on nation music charts thanks to his computer-powered sound. @breakinrust/Instagram
Breaking Rust’s a rugged, raspy-voiced cowboy with chiseled cheeks coated in stubble who wears a 10-gallon hat and has a twang like Grammy winner Chris Stapleton. He topped the Billboard Country Digital Song Sales charts with the smash hit “Walk My Walk” in November.
It was a real success for the music novice, who is 100% AI-generated — with Spotify songs credited only to a mysterious determine named Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, which could also be a pseudonym — a fact that surprised his over 65,000 Instagram followers.
“This isn’t a real person, I fear,” commented an onlooker whose sentiments have been echoed by an equally shocked viewer, who wrote, “Society is in trouble.”
Lucas Hansen, co-founder of CivAI, a nonprofit AI security group, says people, particularly skilled performers, are not in rapid hazard of shedding the highlight to automations.
“When it comes to singers and actors, most consumers care about their mythology and the provenance of their success, which AI artists don’t typically have to share,” Hansen explained to The Post. “It’s typically a big deal when movies land an A-lister for a role because of their brand or their backstories. AI actors don’t offer that.”
But the knowledgeable warns that as developments in artificial intelligence develop in the coming years, bots will turn into “indistinguishable from humans along every axis.”
In fact, Hansen warned, “It’s already trending in that direction.”
Tilly Norwood is supposed to be an engaging starlet who works in the rising AI style of filmmaking. Particle6/Xicoia
Van der Velden said her purpose just isn’t to change conventional TV and movie actors with Tilly and her other AI creations. Particle6/Xicoia
Still, Van der Velden claimed her Tilly isn’t out to rob real actors of their roles.
“It’s funny that [she] blew up so much, especially considering she hasn’t taken anyone’s job,” said the technologist of the flak Tilly’s obtained since starring in an AI-generated comedy sketch in July.
The short movie “AI Commissioner,” by Particle 6, is the computerized pinup’s first and only official appearing gig.
Van der Velden said the people of Hollywood shouldn’t take Tilly “too seriously,” claiming she’ll stay in the “AI genre” of cinematic storytelling for the foreseeable future.
“That’s really where we’re playing with Tilly, and that’s where she should stay,” Van der Velden explained, including that she imbued the bot with some of her own appearing abilities.
“We don’t think she should be taking jobs of real actors in traditional film and TV industry; that’s absolutely not what we want to be doing,” added the pioneer.
Van der Velden, a comedy actress, said she’s creating Tilly (above) with some of her appearing abilities and habits. @tillynorwood/Instagram
Her AI expertise company, Xicoia, is set to roll out at least 40 new AI actors in the coming months. The company will get paid any time Tilly or her robotic cohorts land an appearing job, per Van der Velden. The money is then reinvested in the company, which makes use of the capital to create total universes around each of its synthesized stars.
Particle 6 and Xicoia are also working with a slew of famend human celebrities to create digital twins of themselves.
“It’s the perfect way for AI to be used as a force for good,” said Van der Velden, unable to reveal which top actors need AI doppelgängers due to strict nondisclosure agreements.
“If there are scheduling conflicts, if they have real passion projects that they want to do, but they also want to do a few other projects at the same time, then actors can use their digital twin,” she said of the “complex” course of.
“We’re creating these characters in this new AI environment, and we’re playing in the storytelling that can be done there.”
Van der Velden said her workforce’s work to create AI twins for Hollywood stars is a means the powers of AI will likely be used as a “force for good.” Sportsfile via Getty Images
But Van der Velden is mindful that the story of Tilly — who doesn’t show indicators of growing old or expertise weight fluctuations like a real-life actress — might set new, doubtlessly harmful magnificence requirements in our celeb-influenced society.
“When I created Tilly, I wanted her to be really natural, which is why she doesn’t wear much makeup and her skin’s freckly,” said the millennial, who recollects grappling with self-image as a child due to the drastic magnificence mores of the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s.
It’s a wrestle she doesn’t need to impose on the tweens, teenagers and adults of today — particularly amid anti-aging and fatphobia trends such as the “Sephora kid” craze and “Ozempic body” mania.
“We made sure that she was a healthy weight,” Van der Velden said of Tilly, “and also to make it really transparent that she is AI so that people don’t try and compare themselves to her.”
Van der Velden hopes Tilly will shine as the AI model of Hollywood gem Scarlett Johansson. Particle6/Xicoia
“She’s not real,” insisted the developer, noting a viral image of Tilly with an unintended sixth finger on her left hand.
“She is made for entertainment and fun.”
Telisha “Nikki” Jones, 31, however, doesn’t really feel the same about her AI-powered celebrity, R&B singer Xania Monet.
Instead, the self-taught AI professional tells The Post that the synthetic diva — generated through OpenArt AI — is “an extension” of her, permitting Jones to live out her desires of therapeutic the world through music.
Xania, created as a 29-year-old black girl standing at 5 toes, 8 inches, inked a reported “multimillion-dollar” recording deal with Hallwood Media in September.
Hallwood didn’t reply to The Post’s request for remark.
Jones, a graphic designer and printer based in Mississippi, selected not to affirm the greenback worth of her deal with Hallwood.
Xania Monet is a “healer” who carries the messages that her creator hopes to convey through the music she writes. @xania_monet/Instagram
She did, however, say that “the money is good” and that she owns “100%” of her grasp recordings.
The monumental signing got here just as Xania — with hit tracks such as “How Was I Supposed to Know” and “Social Media Lies” — grew to become the first bot to debut on a number of Billboard charts, including Overall Digital Song Sales, R&B Digital Song Sales, Emerging Artists and Adult R&B Airplay.
Her groundbreaking achievements also got here with flak from real-life songbirds, like SZA and Kehlani, who virally condemned the rise of AI vocalists.
But the backlash doesn’t trouble Jones, who admittedly can’t sing — at least not properly enough to earn a file deal.
It’s her voice and authentic lyrics that make Xania a success.
After creating the pixelated pinup in early July, Jones bought a $300 premium subscription with Suno AI, a digital music generator, and uploaded her voice to the platform.
Jones (above) detailed her recording course of to The Post. Instagram/telishanikki
Xania Monet was the first AI artist to earn positions on a number of Billboard charts and to ink a reported multimillion-dollar deal with a music label. @xania_monet/Instagram
She then prompted the system to rework her sound into that of a sultry, soulful songstress.
And, voilà, an AI megastar was born.
“She carries the messages that I express in my songs and poems,” said Jones, who started writing music at age 24, following a collection of personal losses and heartbreaks. “She’s like therapy to me. She allows [fans] to feel things.”
Despite hate from AI-naysayers, Jones said she’s proud of her success with Xania Monet as a main AI R&B artist. @xania_monet/Instagram
However, the emotions from haters — many who’ve labeled Xania a “fraud” and “vocal Catfish” online — aren’t stopping Jones from basking in Xania’s mild.
“People are entitled to their opinions about her success,” she said. “Everyone doesn’t take the same route to get [to the top].
“But Xania Monet is a healer.”
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