I was in awe when I read an article from CNET News online, dated April 2, 2007 that commented on an Australian website (link - http://www.mycybertwin.com/) providing software that would allow users to create and customize a virtual personality that is able to chat with others when the actual person is offline. My initial thought on this technology was a concern on why people would want to have other real chatters talk to their cybertwin instead of themselves. Even though you can tailor and customize your cybertwin to answer various questions based upon your personality, various FAQ’s that you can set up I still wondered on how effective this line of communication would be.
I also wondered whether the real person being chatted to would know that he/she was talking to a cybertwin. My personal opinion of communication is that you can’t really rehearse what to say to another person if the conversation sways one way or another. Cyberywins may be useful for answering FAQ and other static information but how can anyone use a cybertwin for say dating? Another benefit I thought was maybe, the user of the “MyCyberTwin” software may use this powerful tool to reach multiple websites (i.e. multiple people – e.g. for political campaigning). Even though I may try this software one day, I am still very skeptical that “MyCyberTwin” can fully represent me in an on-line conversation…..my conversations are way too dynamic for a computer software. On the other hand I may be willing to trust my robotwin if he can at least look and act like me.
I also wondered whether the real person being chatted to would know that he/she was talking to a cybertwin. My personal opinion of communication is that you can’t really rehearse what to say to another person if the conversation sways one way or another. Cyberywins may be useful for answering FAQ and other static information but how can anyone use a cybertwin for say dating? Another benefit I thought was maybe, the user of the “MyCyberTwin” software may use this powerful tool to reach multiple websites (i.e. multiple people – e.g. for political campaigning). Even though I may try this software one day, I am still very skeptical that “MyCyberTwin” can fully represent me in an on-line conversation…..my conversations are way too dynamic for a computer software. On the other hand I may be willing to trust my robotwin if he can at least look and act like me.
Links: http://mycybertwin.com/
