Totally. The interesting thing will be in a few years when software like advances to the point to where we've climbed the other side of the valley and this just looks like a stoned girl with a webcam.

After all, if it LOOKS human and it engages in vaguely human-like activities (though perhaps nothing too specific, lest it slip up and show itself to be obviously virtual), I'm sure it could convince a large number of people that it is. Suddenly we have a face for that chat bot that made the news a few months ago for talking lonely young men out of their personal information . . .

...looks like a stoned girl with a webcam... Actually, I think decreasing the quality of the image would make it more realistic. Looping a smile, a giggle, and a smirking peek at the webcam itself, on top of a background of a slightly messy room (something dorm-like) that doesn't need to change, set the faking lighting to look like a screen on her face, and set up a textbot like the one mentioned at "http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3503465.stm. The Eliza Effect meets LonelyGirl15. [edit: removed HTML. My first post here, sorry.]

You might very well be right.

Hmmm, . . ., is "rook lonely men out of credit card info" a good business plan for a YC app? :-P

The Eliza Effect meets LonelyGirl15. - Well put.

We can sub-divide that lower pit into the "Freakishly disturbing". I'm going to have nightmares of that ungodly smile tonight, I just know it.

Those dead eyes freaked me out.