How to Make a Virtual Human?

Digital human project is collaboration of a whole bunch of people coming together to produce, well, a virtual human. In effect, what's happening is it's the computer telling the muscles in the digital mic how to smile, talk, or do things. It makes me wonder if we might get to a point where kids think, well, I would much rather deal with an extremely realistic looking tutor on my laptop who doesn't actually give me a hard time and won't be offended if I tell it or shut up.