We're going to the UN!

Please support our petition to the UN Human Rights Council so that your future digital twin has all the same rights as your human self. Your support will help move humanity forward. 

Position Paper

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is surely the most undeniably fundamental universal truth. Descartes’ dualism makes a great distinction between mind and body, but our doubt lies within the true confines of a human being. Is it just a body? Or could it be as versatile as to include the digital representation of the person? 

In the wake of the imminent future, we believe that a greater focus on a more ethical perspective of data security is required. That is precisely why we propose and advocate that a new article should be added to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Our proposal is as follows:

“All personal digital twins are equal in dignity and rights to their human counterparts and any act upon the personal digital twin that contradicts the Declaration of human rights would be an act upon the human person they represent.” 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights will acquire a new dimension. We are entering a world where the human being is no longer just himself physically but also in the form of a Personal Digital Twin. 

An investigation carried out by Gartner Research predicts that the human being's Personal Digital Twin will become a transformation technology used by up to 5% of the world within 2-5 years.  We have seen countless transgressions against a person’s digital footprint which includes ransom attacks and digital kidnapping. There should be no distinction between an attack on the human body and an attack on our digital twin because our entire essence and identity are being confined, abused, or wrongfully terminated.

The accelerated evolution of technology has allowed Artificial Intelligence to increasingly cease to be treated as nothing more than “Artificial”, or a mere human creation. With humans trying to patent AI entities as patent owners, the topic was brought to the forefront without the current legal framework being ready to address it properly. Without a worldwide consensus, frictions have arisen between what certain courts define as legal or illegal. 

With the supersonic speed at which the digital arena develops, specifically in dimensions inherent to Artificial Intelligence as a new way of life, there is a need to extend the same rights that cover the human race to its digital counterpart.

The legal scene in these matters has for sure not been neglected. Several institutions are already working on building protection walls of technical nature such as HIPAA, GDPR, etc. Data security has been in the minds of lawmakers, but its technical and technological nature will never solve ethical and deontological situations. The safeguarding of humankind’s “neurodata” is something yet to be rightly tackled, but countries like Chile are already spearheading the establishment of laws that would provide the legal ground for neurotechnology.

At a time when the amount of personal information uploaded on the internet is enough to develop a simplified version of our personality, it is imperative to invest in raising awareness of the issue of defining Digital Humans’ rights. In addition, we must build safeguards that extend past the reach of local country jurisdictions and make aggressive acts upon a digital twin a crime against humanity punishable by international law. This is the only way to pave the way to the near and plausible future of AI-enhanced humanity.

Nevertheless, we are aware that a possible objection to our proposal may find ground on the opinion shared by several legal workers outlining that it may be too early to debate these issues. In our point of view, prevention is better than cure and if we guarantee the right legal structure for the future today, serious attacks on our Personal Digital Twins may be avoided later on. We welcome you to consider this position paper and think about the importance such an article will have on all of humanity because the inevitable truth is that the next personal computer will be you.