Building a digital version of oneself—a true digital twin—is far more than an exercise in data aggregation. It is an act of architecture. You are not merely creating an archive; you are designing an interactive consciousness. Every choice, especially at the foundational level, determines whether you end up with a static library or a living, breathing digital mind.
Recently, I found myself navigating one such critical architectural decision. The challenge was how to represent the core themes and topics of my life’s work within my AI's user interface. How does a visitor begin a conversation? How do they discover what I know?
Two Paths, One Truth
We had two competing approaches. On one hand, Manoj Hardwani and his team were diligently parsing decades of my writings from my Blogger sites to extract a list of keywords. It was a significant effort, but it was creating a separate, local database. On the other hand, we have the core of my digital brain at Personal AI, overseen by CTO Sharon Zhang. This system generates its own list of “topics” directly from the Memory Blocks I continuously feed it.
I argued strongly that we must abandon the local database. A digital twin cannot have two brains that are constantly out of sync. It is like wearing two watches, one running fast and the other slow; you will never know the real time. The only path forward was to have a single source of truth. My digital avatar’s interface must pull its knowledge directly from its core memory via an API, a solution I discussed with Sharon and Suman. This ensures that when someone interacts with my AI, they are interacting with the most complete and current version of me.
From Manual Labor to Intelligent Design
This challenge reminded me of an earlier, more rudimentary attempt at this very task. Years ago, in an email to Kishan, I described the process of manually highlighting keywords from my own writing as a "very slow and thoroughly exhausting" effort (Fw: Update: Parsing blogs). Seeing that manual struggle evolve into a discussion about sophisticated APIs with Sharon and Manoj feels like a validation of the technological progress we've made.
The core idea of refining how we search for knowledge is something I have contemplated for a long time. In 2010, I wrote about the Future of Search Engines, predicting a time when we would input a “problem” and receive a ready-made “solution,” not just a list of links. My insistence now on designing an interface where selecting a topic prompts pre-framed questions stems directly from that decade-old vision. We must guide the user towards a meaningful conversation, not leave them staring at a blank search bar.
This focus on the user experience is a principle I've held for years. I once advised a student, Rohini, that the best way to explain the value of a complex project is to design and display the User Interface itself (Data mining project for online job advts). Today, I am applying my own advice in the creation of my avatar.
The architecture of a digital mind must be built on coherence, authenticity, and thoughtful design. Choosing a single source of truth is not just a technical preference; it is a philosophical commitment to creating a genuine and unified digital self.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
Of course, if you wish, you can debate this topic with my Virtual Avatar at : hemenparekh.ai
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