Robot Soul

Here are some examples of characters that have been spawned by the cultural meme called AI: Isaac Asimov's robots, John McCarthy's thinking machines, HAL, CYC, Data, Eliza.

Here's what Marlon Brando, well known as a Method actor, said about characters:

Nobody "becomes" a character. You can't act unless you are who you are.

Character is as Actor does. Anatoly G. Antohin, theatre director and scholar (profile, resume), outlines the relationship between Characters and Actors in this way:

There are many great characters, thanks to great playwrights. Your business is not [only] to deliver their texts, but to use it as a material too. And you have to know HOW to do it, how to USE it.

So, you have to use both -- the text and yourself!

OK - how can we create virtual Actors who can use a playwright's text and themselves to create Characters? What does the advice to "use both -- the text and yourself" mean when "yourself" is the text itself?

That is the $64000 question.