What are `veople' for? (editor's note).

In his novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. describes a scene in which a man about to die says he is looking forward to asking God, "What are people for?" Like this character, who was never able to find an explanation to the question while he was "down here," we're unlikely to discover a definitive answer in our lifetimes. However, if we ask the same question about virtual people--now that they are proliferating in films, games, television, the Web, and beyond--the answers are much more straightforward.

At least that seemed evident at the recent Siggraph panel hosted by Computer Graphics World called "Digital Humans: What Roles Will They Play?" ...