Who should control a digital version of you: the platform that hosts it, or you? What about after you’re dead– the platform or your estate? In this episode of The People’s AI, presented by the Vana Foundation, we explore the fast-emerging world of personal digital twins: AI versions of people built from voice, writing, behavior, and context. We look at what a digital twin actually is, how it differs from an avatar or clone, and why companies are increasingly selling these systems as productivity tools, communication tools, and ways to scale expertise.

From there, we dig into the harder questions: who owns a twin built from your data, whether the law is equipped to handle digital selves, and what happens when platforms, not people, hold custody of the models built from our lives. We also explore the line between helpful leverage and self-extraction, the risks of vendor lock-in, and why data portability may be essential if digital twins are going to remain human-centered rather than platform-controlled.

We then turn to the afterlife question: what happens to your data, likeness, and AI twin after death? That leads us into digital ghosts, legacy contacts, digital wills, and the growing need for clearer rules around posthumous AI. This is a conversation about identity, custody, agency, digital legacy, and whether the model of you is something you own, or something that ends up owning part of you.

Guests

• Julia Creet — Professor and leading international scholar of Cultural Memory Studies
• Natalie Monbiot — Founder, Virtual Human Economy
• Francesco Rulli — CEO, Querlo
• Dr. Randy McIntosh — Director, SFU Institute for Neuroscience and Neurotechnology
• Dr. Elaine Kasket — Cyberpsychologist & Chartered Counselling Psychologist
• Paul Jurcys — Copyright, data-privacy and AI attorney; Co-Founder & Chief Legal Officer, Prifina; Visiting Scholar, UC Berkeley School of Law

The People’s AI is presented by the Vana Foundation, supporting a new internet rooted in data sovereignty and user ownership, where individuals, not corporations, govern their own data and share the value it creates. Learn more at Vana.org.