Storing our digital DNA

At this moment a lot of social companies on the web are trying to understand us. They look at the things we do in the form of social graphs, from the parties we go to to the articles we read and ‘like’. They look at the way we behave on extremely low levels, like how we navigate through an app or website and what we click on (and even the time it took to read a page).

They use this information to create a model of us, a model to predict (or know) our needs. This is what I call our digital DNA. Think about it for a second, those deciding algorithms are getting smarter every day and are getting gigabytes of new information to work with every hour.

Just imagine, from a technological perspective, what could be done with our digital report and DNA in 50 years.

It’s important to see the fine level of detail in this information, a level which to my knowledge is not yet visible. By seeing how all our actions are related to big (and small) events, cultural changes and trends when that change has already happened and has been analysed up till the point where it has been simulated completely countless times. This maybe does not define the real us, but it sure comes pretty close.

Note the fact that we love to put pictures of ourselves on the web. Or even the photographic records that every baby now growing up has from the ‘start’.

Now add that model of all your actions, your digital DNA, to a 3D representation of what you look like. To finish it off just add a flavour of AI (not the one we have right now, but the one we will have in 50 years).

I’m thinking about my unborn grandchildren having conversations with my current self, and after that: We might just have to redefine the definition of dying.