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A quick trip to the bathroom changed Eline Van der Velden’s life — and Hollywood — forever.
There, in the privacy of her porcelain escape, the artificial intelligence innovator was hit with a stroke of genius. Though it would ultimately irk the A-list likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Emily Blunt, Natasha Lyonne, Ryan Reynolds and top dogs 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, exclusively told The Post with a laugh. “We had originally [called her] the ‘Scarlett Johansson of AI.’”
To engineer the faux Scar-Jo, Van der Velden and her team of 15 creators at Particle 6, a London-based AI production studio, immediately sprang into action.
Utilizing 10 AI-generation tools 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 allure.
The visionaries spent hours laboring over her name, ensuring it sounded authentically British and universally unique. For her comely appeal, they designed her physique to resemble that of a “beautiful, whitish-looking young woman” who’d resonate with global audiences.
The experts gathered data from several large language models — rather than copying and pasting physical features from everyday people across the internet — 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, adding 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 faux frontwoman’s recent social media debut ignited a firestorm of calls from VIPs to “boycott” any agencies representing AI talent.
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 aim at Van der Velden’s masterpiece, starring alongside a real woman named Natalie “Tilly” Norwood in a new Mint Mobile commercial, asking the brown-eyed girl, “You are real, right? Not an AI-generated combination of actors?”
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 feature “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 boom, posing a threat to humans hoping to break into, or maintain their status in, the biz.
Breaking Rust’s a rugged, raspy-voiced cowboy with chiseled cheeks covered 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 figure named Aubierre Rivaldo Taylor, which may be a pseudonym — a truth that stunned his over 65,000 Instagram fans.
“This isn’t a real person, I fear,” commented an onlooker whose sentiments were echoed by an equally shocked viewer, who wrote, “Society is in trouble.”
Lucas Hansen, co-founder of CivAI, a nonprofit AI security organization, says folks, specifically professional performers, are not in immediate danger of losing the spotlight 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 expert warns that as advancements in artificial intelligence develop in the coming years, bots will become “indistinguishable from humans along every axis.”
In fact, Hansen warned, “It’s already trending in that direction.”
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 received since starring in an AI-generated comedy sketch in July.
The short film “AI Commissioner,” by Particle 6, is the computerized pinup’s first and only official acting gig.
Van der Velden said the humans of Hollywood shouldn’t take Tilly “too seriously,” claiming she’ll remain 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, adding that she imbued the bot with some of her own acting skills.
“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.
Her AI talent agency, Xicoia, is set to roll out at least 40 new AI actors in the coming months. The agency gets paid any time Tilly or her robotic cohorts land an acting job, per Van der Velden. The money is then reinvested in the company, which uses the capital to create entire universes around each of its synthesized stars.
Particle 6 and Xicoia are also working with a slew of renowned 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 want 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” process.
“We’re creating these characters in this new AI environment, and we’re playing in the storytelling that can be done there.”
But Van der Velden is mindful that the story of Tilly — who doesn’t show signs of aging or experience weight fluctuations like a real-life actress — could set new, potentially dangerous beauty standards 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 recalls grappling with self-image as a kid due to the drastic beauty mores of the 1990s and 2000s.
It’s a struggle she doesn’t want to impose on the tweens, teens and adults of today — especially 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.”
“She’s not real,” insisted the developer, noting a viral image of Tilly with an accidental sixth finger on her left hand.
“She is made for entertainment and fun.”
Telisha “Nikki” Jones, 31, however, doesn’t feel the same about her AI-powered superstar, R&B singer Xania Monet.
Instead, the self-taught AI pro tells The Post that the artificial diva — generated through OpenArt AI — is “an extension” of her, allowing Jones to live out her dreams of healing the world through music.
Xania, created as a 29-year-old black woman standing at 5 feet, 8 inches, inked a reported “multimillion-dollar” recording deal with Hallwood Media in September.
Hallwood did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Jones, a graphic designer and printer based in Mississippi, chose not to confirm the dollar value of her deal with Hallwood.
She did, however, say that “the money is good” and that she owns “100%” of her master recordings.
The monumental signing came just as Xania — with hit tracks such as “How Was I Supposed to Know” and “Social Media Lies” — became the first bot to debut on several Billboard charts, including Overall Digital Song Sales, R&B Digital Song Sales, Emerging Artists and Adult R&B Airplay.
Her groundbreaking achievements also came with flak from real-life songbirds, like SZA and Kehlani, who virally condemned the rise of AI vocalists.
But the backlash doesn’t bother Jones, who admittedly can’t sing — at least not well enough to earn a record deal.
It’s her voice and original lyrics that make Xania a success.
After creating the pixelated pinup in early July, Jones purchased a $300 premium subscription with Suno AI, a virtual music generator, and uploaded her voice to the platform.
She then prompted the system to transform 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 began writing music at age 24, following a series of personal losses and heartbreaks. “She’s like therapy to me. She allows [fans] to feel things.”
However, the feelings from haters — many who’ve labeled Xania a “fraud” and “vocal Catfish” online — aren’t stopping Jones from basking in Xania’s light.
“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.”