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Brillyant comments on To what degree do you model people as agents? - Less Wrong
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I suspect all people, including me, are NPC meat-computers running firmware/software that provides the persistent, conscious illusion of PC-ness (or agenty-ness). Some people are more advanced computers and, therefore, seem more agenty... but all are computers nontheless.
Modeling people this way (as very complex NPCs), as some have pointed out in the comments, seems to be a rather effective means of limiting the experience of anger and frustration... or at least making anger and frustration seem irrational, thereby causing it (at least in my experience) to lose it's appeal (catharsis, or whatever) over time. It has worked that way for me.
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I'm curious... and perhaps someone (smarter than I) can help enlighten me...
How is a discussion of free will different (or similar to) PC vs. NPC?
This seems to suggest that modelling people (who may be agents) as non-agents has only positive consequences. I would point out one negative consequence, which I'm sure anyone who has watched some schlock sci-fi is familiar with: you will only believe someone when they tell you you are caught in a time-loop if you already model them as an agent. Substitute anything else sufficiently mind-blowing and urgent, of course.
Since only PCs can save the world (nobody else bothers trying, after all), then nobody will believe you are currently carrying the world on your shoulders if they think you're an NPC. This seems dangerous somehow.