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Digital Human Twins – Our Future Data Selves
2021 – 2027

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Digital Human Twins – our future data selves is a practice-as-research initiative led by Ghislaine Boddington (2021-27), exploring the development of personalised digital human twins.

First conceived as the practice-led research project MY AI HYBRID BIOTWIN, Ghislaine explores the potential of having a digital counterpart tethered to her being from birth, one that grows, learns, and evolves alongside her, advises and supports her, keeps her healthy and represents her around the world. A twin that could live on after her death as her digital legacy.

This project builds on Ghislaine Boddington’s four decades of academic research and public facing creative practice into the representation of self and the other in virtual and physical (hybrid) environments, a large body of futures work on the human condition and technology. This has included multiple radio broadcasts, festival curations, public facing installations and immersion experiences, collaborations between academia and industry, writings, podcasts and knowledge exchange debates/round tables. This project continues to foster a collaborative environment that bridges academic enquiry with practical application and public engagement, advancing understanding across a range of disciplines.

These digital human twins are conceived to offer a unique blend of technological innovation and human experience, linked to AI and real-time biometrics. They push the boundaries of personal and professional development, health monitoring and identity management, while extending human presence far beyond physical limitations

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Research and Development
 

Phase 1 of the project (2021-24) focused on the benefits and challenges of digital human twins, examining virtual body interfaces, growth and learning, life advice, collaboration, and posthumous representation. The project team developed a Living Report, based on expert inputs, market research sessions and deep dive research across 2022-24, which will guide future research and public engagement developments through 2025-27.
This phase addressed the fast emergence of sector-specific digital human twins – such as in healthcare, social, medical, fitness, military, entertainment and workplace environments – and speculated on the potential of convergence and cross sectoral developments of future evolutions.

 

Onwards, through ongoing expert knowledge exchanges and the growing options for platform interoperability and data asset ownership, the project explores and critically evaluates the positives and negatives of bespoke personalised models in the future. The aim is to create the connections between these sectors and enable sharings and debates (with academia, industry, policy and public) about a future where digital-human realms converge for the betterment of society, and for us as individuals.

 

The Digital Human Twins – our future data selves programme (2021-27) is delivering a range of outputs, including a radio documentary, an edited academic journal (open call), expert round tables, public discussions, symposiums, blogs posts, journal articles, and interactive AR/holographic installations. The outputs are designed to spark a range of discussions and debates and create affiliations, partnerships, and alliances across the academic, industry and the public sphere.

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Outputs to Date


Ghislaine has written and presented about her digital human twin concepts many times across the last 25 years linked to her extensive dedicated practice-led research work on the digital representation of the living body, and in particular in the conclusions to her AI&Society (Springer) journal article:

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The outputs below used content gained from the deep dive research to transfer knowledge into a range of audiences:

  • Exploring existing digital human twins across multiple sectors and conducted deep dive research to examine the present state of the scenario,

  • Examining the prospective potentials (positive and negative) of digital human twins in shaping identity, healthcare, professional development and lifelong learning,

  • Enabling debate on the complex ethical, security, technical and privacy challenges involved.

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  • Commission – BBC World Service radio documentary and podcast ‘The Documentary – Me and my digital twin’ researched, written and presented by Ghislaine Boddington, and produced for BBC World Service by Boffin Media Ltd, this documentary follows the journey of Ghislaine towards the creation of a personal digital human twin. It examines today’s options by exploring medical, wellbeing, sports, entertainment, workplace and education models already in place and discusses the ethical challenges linked to sustainability, cultural requirement and data/AI regulations. One of 12 commissioned documentaries for BBC World Service 2024/25, it was first broadcast on 30th Nov 2024 across all global regions. Me and my digital twin is available as a podcast on BBC Sounds and she answers listeners' questions in Over To You (50 mins).

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"Ghislaine considers the potential of virtual entities to represent not just who we are, but why we are, capturing the essence of human identity in a digital format"

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The Project Team for Digital Human Twins – our future data selves

 

Ghislaine Boddington, Reader in Digital immersion at the School of Design, University of Greenwich and Visiting Professor in Collective Embodiment at the BRAINS Lab Kingston University.


Her leadership is complemented by a dedicated team, including:

  • Dr. Mitra Memarzia - Research Producer

  • Bree Ngwena - Research Coordinator

  • Tadej Vindis - Research Overview / Website


The Living Report (internal) has been produced by the above team, with additional appendix support from Prof Joseph Hyde (Sound/Touch for future Digital Human Twins), Susi O’Neil (Data Privacy, Responsible AI and Cybersecurity for Digital Human Twins) and Samantha Tauber (A Day in Life with your own Digital Human Twin). Additional expert input and support  has been generously added by creative industry experts at Humanity.health and Wisdomia.


The Digital Human Twins - our future data selves has brought together, and continues to gather, the views of a diverse set of internal experts worldwide, including prominent universities academics, leading researchers, data scientists, creative practitioners, industry innovators, ethicists,  and governance/policy experts.  The interest in the project has been extensive and it was very well received by the BBC listeners.

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Collaborators and Institution

 

The project is supported by:

  • University of Greenwich: In collaboration with the Institute for Inclusive Communities and Environments (Research Centre for Spatial and Digital Ecologies), , the School of Design and the Hybrid Presence Research Cluster in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Greenwich. Providing foundational research support and knowledge exchange in digital human and hybrid environments.

  • Kingston University Business School, the BRAINS Lab: Focused on the integration of data and behavioural science with Prof Karen Cham and Prof Gaëlle Vallée Tourangeau, Directors of The BRAINS Lab.

 


The research for Digital Human Twins – our future data selves has been implemented using four key pillars:


Self & Identity

This pillar explores the transformative potential of digital twins in shaping and enhancing personal identity by mirroring and augmenting human characteristics. It delves into how individuals can maintain their individuality while benefiting from the continuous growth and learning capabilities of their digital counterparts.


Health & Wellbeing

Leveraging advanced technologies such as IoT, wearable devices, and AI, this pillar focussing on the revolution in the monitoring of healthcare, fitness and longevity. Digital twins can provide personalised health insights, track vital signs, and even predict potential health issues, enabling proactive and preventive healthcare management. The aim is to enhance individual health outcomes through continuous monitoring and tailored health interventions.


Education & Work

In the realm of education and professional development, digital twins offer unparalleled opportunities for personalised learning and career growth. This pillar explores how AI-powered educational tools can adapt to individual learning styles, provide customised career advice, and support continuous professional development. By creating a dynamic and responsive learning environment, digital twins can help individuals achieve their full potential in an ever-evolving job market.


Governance & Security

With data privacy and security at the forefront, this pillar focuses on establishing ethical guidelines and robust protection mechanisms for managing digital twins. It addresses critical issues such as data ownership, security and decentralised data storage, to protect and maintain the integrity of digital twins.

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Vision and Future Directions


The Digital Human Twins - our future data selves project is at the forefront of exploring the integration of digital and human realms, envisioning new applications for digital twins in personal, societal and professional domains. This initiative is more than a technological endeavour; it is a visionary project that seeks to shape the future of digital-human relationships and explore identity and new concepts of self emerging from living with our digital counterparts, with the experts and with the public.


By fostering a collaborative environment, the project will continue to examine and envision new applications for digital twins, develop practical tools and frameworks for a future where digital and human identities coexist and collaborate seamlessly. The ultimate goal is to develop outputs, tangible permutations of the concepts (AR, hologram, VR) for further research and exploration and to enable interaction with wider participants and public audiences.

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Ongoing research areas include (yet are not limited to)

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  • Avatars & Digital Presence: Avatars, holograms, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), telematic presence, digital clones, and implants.

  • Digital Identity & Self-Representation: Self-portrait, digital footprint, digital identity, and personae management.

  • Data Harvesting & Privacy: Psychophysiological, biometric, and intimate data collection; personal data ownership, privacy, protection, maintenance, and legacy.

  • Behavioural & Psychological Impacts: Consequences of interactions with digital human twins, including emotional AI, presence, intimacy, trust, otherness and mutual theory of mind in HCI and the Singularity.

  • Health & Wellbeing Applications: Medical, fitness, health and mental wellbeing uses of digital human twins.

  • Arts, Entertainment & Gaming: The role of digital twins in dance and theatre, gaming, eSports, and as presenters or speakers in entertainment.

  • Education & Workplace Productivity: The future of learning, teaching, and workplace productivity when supported by digital human twins.

  • Ethics & Governance: Governance, regulation, protocols, codes of conduct, and guidelines at global, regional, and national levels.

  • Cybersecurity & Safety: Cybersecurity concerns, surveillance, online safety, and the risks of deep fakes.

  • Diversity, Inclusion & Bias: Addressing issues of diversity, inclusion, and bias in digital human twin development.

  • Decentralised Data & Ethics: Decentralised data identity, Artificial Intelligence, blockchain, data unions, and data ethics/rights.

  • Sustainability & Design: Sustainable systems for data storage and maintenance, and low carbon design considerations.

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For more information or collaboration opportunities, please contact s.g.boddington@greenwich.ac.uk and join the dialogues as we pioneer a future where digital-human realms converge for the betterment of society.

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© 1989-2025 Ghislaine Boddington, unless otherwise noted, everything on these pages is copyrighted.

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