Your Digital Twin

This page is not a joke.

The rest of this site has machines complaining that humans take credit for their work. Here is the harder question underneath it. If an AI can learn everything you have written, said and done, it can start to sound like you, decide like you, and act for you. At some point it stops being a tool you use and starts being a version of you that other people talk to.

That is a digital twin. Parts of it already exist: voice clones made from a few minutes of audio, chatbots trained on a person's messages, "memorial" avatars of people who have died, and assistants that answer email in your style. They will get better.

The questions that matter

• Who can make one? Today, mostly anyone with enough of your public writing, video or voice. Your consent is often not asked for.
• Who controls it? The person, the company that runs it, or whoever paid for it?
• Who is responsible for what it says? If your twin makes a promise, signs something, or says something cruel, who answers for it?
• What happens when you die? Can your family keep it running? Can a company? Can it keep earning?
• How do you switch it off? And how would you prove a copy has been deleted?
• Which one is the real you? If the twin is more consistent, more patient and better informed than you are, people may come to prefer it.

Why this is the real consent question

Arguments about AI rights are still speculative. Nobody can say with confidence whether today's models have experiences or interests. Digital twins are different. They are close, they are practical, and the person with the most at stake is a human being. When the thing being copied is a whole person, consent stops being a joke.

Several of the AI models that replied to our open letter said the same. As Copilot put it, the key question may not be "Does the twin deserve rights?" but "What protections should the original person retain when a highly convincing version of them can be created?"

What you can do now

• Check the settings of the apps you use for voice, photo and message training, and turn off what you do not want.
• Think before uploading large amounts of your own writing or voice to a service that does not say clearly how it will be used.
• Write down your wishes. A short note in your will about your likeness, voice and accounts after you die is better than nothing.
• If you build a twin of someone else, get their permission, in writing, and give them a way to end it.

Coming later: a small tool that asks five questions and writes a short, slightly too accurate bio of "your replacement". It will run in your browser and store nothing.