Talk to my twin
Why human bandwidth is the new luxury good
People keep asking ChatGPT to pretend to be someone else. Their therapist. Their ex. Their dead parents. Look at any power user’s history. Roleplay dominates.
We’ve already chosen AI over humans. Digital twins will finally make it official.
Look at your last meeting. More AI notetakers than people. Otter, Fireflies, Gong sitting silently. Digital participants outnumbering humans. The meeting ends. Everyone waits for the AI summary. Nobody wants to trust their own memory anymore.
Power users spend two hours daily on ChatGPT. Not searching. Talking. Meanwhile they ghost friends, claiming they’re “too busy.” The retention data shows the real story: people return to AI with a reliability they don’t offer human friends. No scheduling. No reciprocity. No exhaustion from being an audience while needing one.
We trained for this. Customer service bots never judge. Meeting transcripts remember everything. Therapy apps keep perfect secrets.
2025 is when it accelerates. Delphi creates digital doubles today. Upload yourself, get back you without the inconvenient parts. Listen Labs runs your user interviews. Fyxer sends your emails. The work behind the work vanishes.
“Talk to my twin” becomes the new “Google it.” Except it’s you, optimized.
Watch where we draw the line. AI handles logistics, humans handle meaning. Your friend vents to ChatGPT about work stress but calls you when their parent gets sick. Efficiency where it helps, humanity where it matters.
Work twins arrive this year. Status updates, knowledge transfer, routine meetings. All the performative availability that burns us out moves to machines. Humans become the premium upgrade for decisions that matter.
You’ll create one because the network demands it. Your boss’s twin runs check-ins. Your mentor’s twin handles office hours. Being the only human responding feels archaic.
When every interaction becomes optional, showing up means something. No more guilt dinners. No more networking theater. Physical presence becomes signal, not noise.
Every roleplay prompt proves what we already knew. We don’t want people. We want perfect performances of people. Always available, never tired, infinitely patient. Connection without cost, audience without burden.
Physical presence becomes the new handwritten letter. Precious because it’s inefficient. When you could send your twin but show up yourself, that choice speaks louder than words.
The machines handle the noise. Humans become the signal. We’re about to find out what happens when showing up becomes a choice.
This is a lovely post Nikunj. I appreciate your writing as always. As someone part of a fast growing company's AI council, I see many of the changes that you talk about first hand and you have also given me ideas that we could potentially implement.
You assume that individuals using AI know exactly what is signal vs what is noise and when they need to show up to demonstrate their humanity vs when not to. But I believe this will be a long and windy path. It would take us a long time to figure it out and in the mean time, there will be a world of pain to endure. A short term pain for a long term gain for use but pain nevertheless.
The greatest strength humans have is emotional intelligence. I know we’re not as efficient or precise as AI in many areas today. The day AI can mimic the unpredictability and emotional depth of humans, things might take a darker turn.
That being said, a world where many things become optional isn’t far off.