Most of us have been told by a friend that we have a doppelganger – some stranger they passed on the street who bore an uncanny resemblance to you.
But imagine if you could create your very own twin, an exact copy of yourself, but one that lived a purely digital life?
We are living in an age where everything that exists in the real world is being replicated digitally – our cities, our cars, our homes, and even ourselves.
And just like the hugely-hyped metaverse – plans for a virtual, digital world where an avatar of yourself would walk around – digital twins have become a new, talked-about tech trend.
A digital twin is an exact replica of something in the physical world, but with a unique mission – to help improve, or in some other way provide feedback to, the real-life version.
Initially such twins were just sophisticated 3D computer models, but artificial intelligence (AI) combined with the internet of things – which uses sensors to connect physical things to the network – have meant that you can now build something digitally that is constantly learning from and helping improve the real counterpart.