Are digital twins for real❔ - 11th July 2022

A digital twin is a precise copy of something in the real world, but with the goal of improving or providing feedback for the real-life version. It's an ideal way to better performance and efficiency. These days, you can find a huge variety of digital twins, ranging from vehicles to bridges and even to human hearts.

Artificial intelligence (AI) combines with sensors which connect the actual item to the internet to construct a digital twin. This twin constantly learns from and also helps develop the original.

Technology analyst Rob Enderle believes that we'll have the first versions of thinking human digital twins "before the end of the decade". He warns they'll probably be controversial since these human copies "could be incredibly beneficial to employers."

"What happens if your company creates a digital twin of you, and says 'Hey, you've got this digital twin who we pay no salary to, so why are we still employing you?'" Mr Enderle thinks that ownership of such digital twins will become one of the principal concerns.

We've already started the journey towards human twinning in the form of avatars, but these are currently fairly unsophisticated. For example, in Meta (formerly Facebook's) virtual reality game Horizon Worlds, you can design a face which is similar to your own. However, for now you can't provide it with legs, because the technology is in its early stages.

Professor Sandra Wachter, a senior research fellow in AI at Oxford University understands the attraction of creating digital twins of humans. At present, however, she sees it as the stuff of science fiction.