Digital twins and mirror worlds
Building new worlds with travel advisories
Our physical world is both replicated and enriched by digital representations. In many ways, as we move our organic realities through our tangible universe, we drag our digital realities with us through a complex series of alternative digital universes. In some cases, these alternatives will be geographic; in others, they will be more abstract.
When I think of geographic information, I think of these digital mirror worlds. When I think about smartphones, I think about portals into these alternative universes. A phone is a subtle knife that allows movement between realms of information.
As we navigate our lives we are constantly interacting with these alternative realities. When Gelertner first talked about Mirror Worlds in the 90s, his observations were prescient:
There are software models of some chunk of reality, some piece of the real world going on outside your window.
In the 90s, those universes were navigated only by experts; now, we have created systems and technology to make that navigation almost invisible. As I argued in Enable Simplicity, building innovative products which are practically invisible but just “a lot better” is a great strategy to reduce barriers to adoption.
The phrase digital twin has been co-opted by several industrial groups. From building designers to agronomists, I have seen this phase provide the mental visualization to help broader populations understand a designed digital connectivity between features within a constrained environment. In many ways, it’s a great term because it conjures up the image of a digital equivalency to a process or thing. But this notion of a digital mirror world is more ephemeral, more esoteric.
It could be argued that traditional Geographic Information Systems (GIS) serve a similar purpose: creating geographic data that may or may not be directly represented in physical space. Interestingly, in Gelentner’s initial explorations, he was reflecting simply on the existence of digital data, not that the entire world would somehow interact with that data through a mobile device.
So, what separates a GIS from a mirror world, from a digital twin?
I use this image a lot.
Mirror Worlds
Somewhere, on some computer, there is a geographic line that this signpost attempts to inform visitors about. That line was derived through some authoritative process by a government body, but it remains invisible to people in the physical world. In the line’s digital mirror world, it holds a legal status and that status holds physical import to people who behave inappropriately on either side of that invisible line. Yet, one could wander through this area, miss a sign and remain oblivious to some geographic status change.
In our physical activities we are clumsily barging through digital mirror worlds every day with minimal repercussions. But that will change as our digital and physical realities are increasingly hard to separate
Mirror worlds depend on data, and geospatial data, especially points of interest with their associated building outlines are notoriously inconsistent. When the presence or absence of our smart devices within various poorly digitized and under-classified polygons being monitored, unbeknownst to our over-caffeinated and hyper-stimulated brains, we can rightly be concerned that data errors could end up having significant legislative impacts on parts of our society. In cases like these, the looking glass through which we can see our mirror world could also be reporting our activities right back to the Queen of Hearts.
The idea of a mirror world is really just what we do with geographic data. Only recently, with the advent of connected geographic devices, are we seeing the collision between pervasive location tracking and privacy. The duel plains of our physical and digital identities are being inferred from each other.
In this inference, a digital and policy rubicon has been crossed. Having lost our digital privacy, it seems unlikely that can easily find it again. Of course, not all use cases are nefarious, but there is something sadly complicated and human in the idea that while we can never again easily be private, the machines may be looking on while people still suffer from loneliness.
That may seem needlessly dark. In reality, we can always achieve digital privacy by abandoning our devices. Go for a walk and leave your phone behind. We don’t need to share everything. The concepts of digital mirror worlds and digital twins as extensions to our traditional ideas around GIS are tremendously powerful. Indeed, companies like Niantic have created digital mirror worlds for us to play and delight in. Not all futures must be dystopian; I believe that, ultimately, our society tends to make good decisions, albeit we can take time to settle on “good'.”
Digital Twins
Digital twins, tend to exhibit at least one more critical feature: the ability to simulate. While mirror worlds are, digital twins also allow for what could be. This ability to project scenarios through time means a digital twin becomes a playground for experimentation. This is a hugely valuable toolkit for understanding different economic, climate and policy choices. A modern and increasingly detailed Sim City, but for anything, is a compelling idea that, for expert communities, provides deep insight into future phenomena.
Digital Twins have been used within the industrial community for some time for the design and management of large machinery. The simulation and tracking of machine maintenance and gentle experimentation based on the likely future lifespan of the machine within the context of past maintenance are great safety mechanisms. This idea is bleeding into building and geographic developments. Why can we not think about our geographic spaces as systems and components for simulation and monitoring?
If we indulge in some “inevitability thinking,” we know that cities will eventually be able to manage their infrastructure and assets with digital twins. To some extent, this is already being done, albeit with understandably limited expectations.
Portals to the future?
A digital mirror world can be interacted with via a smart device, meaning we can build services to tap into those worlds through the phone. The phone is then a portal through which to see these invisible places. The digital twin takes this idea further to build simulation capability giving our community the ability to project scenarios forward.
What is more compelling than seeing into the future?
All universes are flawed in the same way that all models are just that, a model of reality. We should celebrate this because most digital twins are designed to abstract phenomena for experimentation. This, of course, begets the question of chaos and complex systems (thinking about transitions is useful here.) Nevertheless, if we endeavour to build new digital universes, then data quality should always be considered.
If you are compelled to build your own mirror world, at least add an appropriate travel advisory!