In the future, a person will enter the digital ecosystem through their digital twin. Their digital twin will be a portal managing all conversations with other digital twins of persons, organizations, or things.
This is a future of the democratization of the Internet where each person takes control. It represents a shift from the present, where actions are not personal nor private to a future of personal and private interaction.
A digital twin will strut upon the digital stage with a full knowledge of all the other players. It will provide a person with data privacy and internet assisted personal fulfillment. As shown in the diagram above, there are key aspects to the performance of a person digital twin:
- Person – A single real person.
- Digital Twin – A real person’s unique representation on the web, structured around satisfaction within Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
- Digital Tree of Knowledge – Description logic and processes to support definitions and functions to satisfy a person’s needs.
- Internet Servers – All servers accessed by the Digital Twin such as Education, Financial, etc.
In the theater of performance of a digital twin, the following capabilities will be provided:
- The Digital Tree of Knowledge will be an open repository for access and contribution. Like a library, it will have a full classification system that defines the structure of the tree.
- Only the real person can select the knowledge from the Digital Tree of Knowledge to share with their digital twin.
- The Digital Twin performs all actions assigned by the person and stores all private information.
One current effort that closely aligns with a person digital twin is the Solid project of MIT:
“Solid is an exciting new project led by Prof. Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, taking place at MIT. The project aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy. “ https://solid.mit.edu/
This project recognizes the need for a radical change as described in this article. Yet security and privacy, although extremely important, are not enough to motivate people to adopt a radical new change. There must be a much stronger incentive.
Part 2 of this article will describe why people will transition to this change. The “Why” is found in the personal fulfillment gained by having a personal twin, where each person discovers and lives by their true north.