Digital twins must include human and social system factors
Missing Dimensions: Integrating Human and Social Systems into Digital Twin Engineering
Software Engineering
Summary
Digital twins are computer models that replicate real-world systems for monitoring and control. But most digital twins only focus on physical or natural elements, leaving out humans and their social interactions. The authors say we should build digital twins that also model human behavior and social dynamics, which means shifting from just automatic control to helping people make decisions. They use smart buildings as an example and highlight challenges in creating these multi-dimensional digital twins.
What this means in practice
- •For smart building engineers: Design building management systems that consider occupant behavior and social factors to improve decision support instead of relying only on automation.
- •For urban planners: Incorporate human and social system modeling into digital twins of city environments to better support community-focused planning decisions.
A position paper. It proposes an approach and reports no results.
Authors
Francis Bordeleau, Mark van den Brand
Abstract
Digital twins (DTs) have emerged as a key technology at the core of digital transformation, yet their engineering practice remains too narrowly focused on engineered and natural systems. This paper argues that four system dimensions must be explicitly recognized in DT engineering: Engineered, Natural/Biological, Human, and Social. Each dimension brings distinct properties, modeling requirements, and ethical obligations that fundamentally shape what a DT must represent and how it must be built. We further argue that as DTs extend into the Human and Social dimensions, the emphasis should shift from automated control toward decision support and occupant empowerment. We illustrate our arguments using a smart building as a running example and identify four open research challenges for multi-dimensional DT engineering.