Why you may soon have a digital twin and what they are for

Imagine if you could create your own twin, an exact copy of yourself, but living a strictly digital life.

We are living in an era where everything that exists in the real world is being replicated digitally — our cities, our cars, our homes and even ourselves.

And, now that the so-called metaverse is extremely popular — the idea of ​​a virtual and digital world inhabited by avatars representing real people — digital twins have become one of the most talked about new technological trends on the networks.

A digital twin is an exact replica of something in the physical world, but with a unique mission: to help improve or otherwise provide feedback to the real-life version.

Initially, these twins were just fancy 3D computer models, but artificial intelligence (AI) combined with the internet of things — which uses sensors to connect something physical to the network — allows you to build something digitally that you’re constantly learning and helping to build. improve your real inspiration.

Tech analyst Rob Enderle believes we will have the first versions of thinking human digital twins “before the end of the decade.”

“Their emergence will require a huge amount of ethical consideration and consideration, because a thoughtful replica of ourselves can be incredibly useful to employers,” he says.

“What happens if your company creates a digital twin of you and says ‘hey, you have this digital twin that we don’t pay a salary to, so why do we still pay you?'”

Enderle believes that the question of who owns such digital twins will be one of the defining questions of the impending metaverse era.

We’ve already started the journey towards creating twins with the aforementioned avatars — but these are still pretty clunky and primitive these days.

On Meta’s virtual reality platform (new company name Facebook), Horizon Worlds, for example, you can give your avatar a face similar to your own, but you can’t even give it legs because the technology is still in its early stages.

Professor Sandra Wachter, Senior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Oxford, understands the appeal of creating digital twins from humans: “It’s reminiscent of exciting science fiction novels, and right now, that’s the stage where he is”.

She adds that whether someone “succeeds in law school, gets sick or commits a crime — will depend on the still-debated ‘nature versus nurture’ issue. It will depend on good luck and bad luck, friends, family, their socioeconomic background and environment. and, of course, your personal choices.”

However, she explains, AI is still not good at predicting these “unique social events, due to their inherent complexity. And so, we have a long way to go before we can understand and shape a person’s life from beginning to end.” , assuming this is possible.”

Instead, it is in the areas of product design, distribution and urban planning that the use of digital twins is currently the most sophisticated and extensive.

In Formula 1 racing, the McLaren and Red Bull teams use digital twins of their race cars.

Meanwhile, delivery giant DHL is creating a digital map of its warehouse and supply chains to enable them to be more efficient.

And more and more our cities are also being replicated in the digital world. Shanghai and Singapore have digital twins, created to help improve the design and operations of buildings, transport systems and streets.

In Singapore, one of the tasks of its digital twin is to help people find new ways of getting around, avoiding areas of intense pollution. Other places use the technology to suggest where to build new infrastructure, such as underground lines. And new cities in the Middle East are being built simultaneously in the real and digital worlds.

French software company Dassault Systemes says thousands of companies are now interested in its digital twin technology.

So far, the company has created digital twins to help a hair care company digitally design more sustainable shampoo bottles, bypassing the need to create countless prototypes. This reduces waste.

And it’s allowing other companies to create futuristic new designs — from jetpacks to motorcycles with floating wheels and even flying cars. Each has a physical prototype, but the refinement of that initial model takes place in the digital space.

But it is in healthcare where the real value of digital twins is seen.

Dassault Systemes’ Living Heart project has created an accurate virtual model of the human heart that can be tested and analyzed, allowing surgeons to simulate and experiment with a range of scenarios and situations with the organ, using various medical procedures and devices.

The project was founded by Steve Levine, who had personal reasons for creating a digital twin. His daughter was born with congenital heart disease, and a few years ago, when she was in her late 20s and at high risk of heart failure, he decided to recreate her heart in virtual reality.

Boston Children’s Hospital in the United States is using this technology to map patients’ real heart conditions. At Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London, a team of engineers is working with doctors to test devices that can help children with rare and difficult-to-treat heart conditions.

Experimenting on a digital heart also has the effect of reducing the need for animal testing — one of the most controversial aspects of scientific research, says Severine Trouillet, director of global affairs at Dassault Systemes.

The company now plans more digital organ twins, including the eye and even the brain.

“At some point, we’ll all have a digital twin, so you can go to the doctor and get more and more preventive medicine and make sure every treatment is personalized,” says Trouillet.

Perhaps even more ambitious than replicating human organs is the race to build a digital version of our entire planet.

American software company Nvidia runs a platform called Omniverse, designed to create virtual worlds and digital twins.

One of his most ambitious projects is to build a digital doppelganger of Earth, capturing high-resolution images of its entire surface.

Earth-2, as it has been dubbed, will use a combination of deep learning models and neural networks to mimic physical environments in the digital realm and come up with solutions to climate change.

In March 2022, the European Commission, together with the European Space Agency, among others, announced their own plans to make a digital twin of the planet, dubbed Destination Earth.

By the end of 2024, it is expected to have enough data from real-time observations and simulations to create a digital twin that will focus on floods, droughts, and heat waves, in addition to natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis, and provide countries concrete plans to save lives in the face of these growing challenges.

This text was originally published here.