An Avatar on an LLM Is a Costume, Not a Character: Designers Push Back on Skin-Deep Personas
nptacek · x · 2026-10-02
Designer Shirley Pasquale argues that an avatar on an LLM is a costume, not a character. Real character is the gestalt: voice, timing, desire, restraint, and the things it won't say. She frames it as the classic "design is how it looks vs how it works" debate repeating itself — most AI persona work is surface-level packaging rather than behavioral character design.
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