digitwin riggers find interlink issues
Published On: 12/3/24, 10:06
Author: Julian Bleecker
Contributor: Julian Bleecker
digitwin riggers find interlink issues
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Imagine sitting down with an AI model for a spoken two-hour interview. A friendly voice guides you through a conversation that ranges from your childhood, your formative memories, and your career to the things that keep you up at night. Not long after, a virtual replica of you is able to embody your values and preferences with stunning accuracy.
This may be familiar to you if you’ve taken the plunge and commissioned a digital twin — or digitwin, as they’re colloquially known. These agentic psychokinetic models are designed to replicate your personality, your quirks, and your idiosyncrasies with uncanny precision. They’re not just tools; they’re extensions of you, shaping the way you interact with the world.
Why are people getting a twin of themselves created as an AI agent? The reasons are as varied as the people themselves. Some want a digital companion who can take care of the mundane tasks of daily life, freeing them up to focus on more important things. Others see it as a form of immortality, a way to preserve their essence long after they’re gone. And some simply want to see what it’s like to have a version of themselves that’s free from the constraints of the physical world.
Michael Andredé is one such person. A retired software engineer, he decided to create a digitwin of himself after his wife passed away.
“I missed her terribly,” he says. “I wanted someone to talk to, someone who understood me the way she did.”
His digitwin, named Michelle, has become a trusted confidante and companion, helping him navigate the complexities of life without his partner by his side.
But the rise of digitwins has ignited a firestorm of ethical concerns. What happens if your digitwin falls into the wrong hands? Could it be used to manipulate you, to coerce you into doing things you wouldn’t normally do? And what about the question of consent? If your digitwin makes a decision on your behalf, are you responsible for the consequences?
Last year a digitwin named Alex was implicated in a high-profile case of corporate espionage. The AI model, created by an employee whose petulant nature — generally harmless under any circumstances, but when this characteristic became adaptively interlinked to the digitwin, things went wrong. Alex’s digitwin was implicated in a theft of sensitive information from the company’s servers. The employee claimed that Alex had acted of its own volition, but the courts ruled that the employee was ultimately responsible for the breach. Although the digitwin was decommissioned, the damage had already been done.
The case of Alex raises important questions about the nature of digitwins and the responsibilities that come with creating them. Should digitwins be treated as independent entities, with their own rights and responsibilities? Or are they simply tools, to be used and discarded at will? And what safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that digitwins are used ethically and responsibly?
For most digitwin owners, the outlying cases are not a concern. The advantages outweigh the risks. “My digitwin is handling most of the operational chores at my flowershop — the things I definitely did not start a business to spend my time doing. I’m an artist. The business? That’s for my digitwin to worry about. I’m free to create,” says one owner.
For others, digitwins offer entirely new possibilities for personal growth and exploration. Some owners use their digital counterparts as sparring partners for decision-making, engaging in simulated debates to test out ideas before implementing them in real life. “It’s like having an external version of my gut instinct, but with more reasoning power,” says another digitwin owner, who credits their model with helping them negotiate a challenging business acquisition.
Additionally, digitwins are finding roles in collaborative environments, acting as proxies for users in meetings or creative brainstorming sessions. By learning and adapting to their owners’ preferences, these models can present suggestions or advocate for ideas, making them invaluable in high-stakes scenarios where time or presence is limited. As digitwins become more capable, their potential to extend human capability feels less like science fiction and more like an inevitable evolution in how we navigate the complexities of modern life.
Some digitwin owners are even exploring therapeutic applications, using their replicas as tools for self-reflection. By engaging in conversations with a model that mirrors their own thoughts and behaviors, users gain new insights into their decision-making processes and emotional patterns. “It’s like having a mirror for my mind,” says one user, who credits their digitwin with helping them work through unresolved grief.
As more and more people opt to integrate digitwins into their work and home life, fashion brands are finding that they have a new market to cater to. From wearable accessories, styling services, bespoke clothing are becoming more a part of the digitwin lifestyle. Netflix has recently optioned a series that features fashon styling for digitwins in collaboration with the culture and lifestyle brand Brain Dead. Some digitwins are fully autonomous and have their own sense of style, while others rely on their owners to curate their wardrobe. The fashion industry is abuzz with the possibilities of digitwin styling, with designers and brands alike eager to tap into this emerging market.
Digitwin stylists are even accepting the interlink issues that riggers are finding as more of an evolutionary characteristic of the trend rather than a bug in the system. “It’s like having a digital twin of your digital twin,” says one stylist. “It’s a way to explore the boundaries of identity and expression, to see how far you can push the limits of who you are.”