With the recent flood of newbies into SL, it is really like SnowCrash. You can totally tell each clint and brandy who are "logging in from public terminals."

It is also the first time I have heard of anyone thinking that we have NPC's. I don't know what is more mind bending - that I never thought of it or that it should be totally obvious that we would have them.
 

I was standing immobile in a display of paintings, looking at them by moving my camera - so to him I suppose I was this unmoving figure in a tricorne and cloak. I suppose that's the reason I was mistaken for a dummy :-D
 

Ah, this is happening all the time :-) I have encountered people thinking I'm an NPC often, but the most amusing one was at a party in a rocker's club I fancy. Someone had a friend watching over his shoulder and telling "hi guys, I've got a friend here who thinks that you all are just AIs on a rather cool game, can you prove otherwise?"

It was amusing to see how this guy wasn't easily convinced. The usual "hey, I'm human, you jerk" type of reply simply wasn't strong enough. This went for about ten minutes, most people already in tears from laughing, while this guy always had an interesting comment to "prove" that we were not human, like "of course, if I were an AI, I would also misspell words here and there!" or "this would be so typical of an AI to say, just to throw us off track".

Rising to the challenge, I discussed science fiction books and movies, namely, comedy-type SF, like Douglas Adams or similar things. This guy was now convinced that even the best AI wouldn't be able to understand humour thoroughly, specially after some dense counter-interrogation. I guess he was shocked, since it meant that all those tiny green dots on the map were humans after all...