Do you know your digital twin? Or do you know if you have one? Or maybe even more than one?

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stefan Wagenpfeil

2d Edited

Do you know your digital twin? Or do you know if you have one? Or maybe even several? How many of them are actually out there…?

“Digital twin” is a fairly general term for virtual representations of physical objects, processes, or systems that enable an accurate depiction of reality through the continuous exchange of real-time data.

(Yeah, you could put it that way. I stole that from one of my lectures. Sorry about that….)

In other words: whenever we try to digitally represent real-world objects in any form, we can (!) refer to them as digital twins.

Theoretically, then, as soon as I save your contact information on my cell phone. After all, you’re (hopefully) a real person; the entry in my phone is a virtual representation of you (if possible, I like to add a photo of you so I can remember you better), and just like that, a digital twin of you is created in my phone.

That would be a fairly “simple” digital twin, though. In practice, the term wouldn’t be used to describe it yet. It lacks—to some extent—the “precise representation of reality” as well as the “continuous exchange of data.”

The term originally comes from the industrial sector (mechanical engineering, automotive, manufacturing, factories—everything related to Industry 4.0), but is now used far beyond that context. Buildings have digital twins, and so do entire cities (Digital Twin City), which are then used to simulate all sorts of scenarios. Value chains—for example, in logistics—are modeled using digital twins, and biology and medicine also make use of the concept.

The term “digital twin” is thus evolving from a purely technical description into an umbrella term for dynamic digital representations of real-world systems and objects.

This also plays a major role in marketing, because the more data you’ve collected about me—and stored in your digital twin of me—the more accurately you can recommend products to me.

And that’s how we end up creating so many different digital twins. If you stop to think about just how many digital traces we leave behind, it would probably be pretty creepy if they all joined forces…

With AI, digital twins can be made increasingly realistic. My AI avatar looks like me and speaks like me (only with better Standard German—see the video in the comments for proof). My AI agent has access to my data and can (if I were to allow it) do things on my behalf.

I can’t say for sure whether one of my AI twins has just twisted his knee, though—but I’m guessing he at least knows about it….

#computer scientists are cool #careaboutyourdigitaltwin