News from the future: Our next teachers, avatars?

Spotted on /. and Tim’s News from the Future list, Roland writes –

Researchers from Illinois and Florida are developing a networking system which will create virtual representations of real people to improve our knowledge. They will use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with these avatars. The goal of the project, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to give us the possibility to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and answer questions. We should see the results at the beginning of 2008 — if the researchers succeed.

More:

• Our next teachers: avatar experts – Link.
• Virtual reality for virtual eternity – Link.

Sign up for the News from the Future newsletter here – Link.