After hearing about the success of IBM's Watson I started thinking perhaps emulating human language is now possible?

My goal is to create Virtual Historical characters to represent the main characters in my Adventur-Cation The Great American Adventure program such as Einstein or Crazy Horse.

The goal is to build an intelligent system capable of indexing the internet and storing the data using a schema using modern knowledge on linguistic theory (phonemes, morphemes, syntax) to build a system capable to returning a semantically sound response very similar to the response made by the same person if still alive today.

The goal would be to use the same engine/system for all characters. Each characters would have their own digital representation and voice, and would organize data differently based on tags/keywords stored about the individual. Imagine a Max Headroom Einstein.

Based on the success of Watson, I believe something like this may now be possible. Would be an interesting way to study history and would be a vehicle of entertainment as well.

Can anyone confirm if this has already been attempted? Is anyone interested in exploring this using Cognitive Science, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Historical data captured on the internet, and Linguistic theory?