How the map becomes the territory: prediction, performativity and the process of taking digital twins for granted

Abstract

A growing body of literature argues that digital models do not just help organizational leaders to predict the future. Models can inadvertently produce the very future they purport to describe. In this view, performativity is a side-effect of digital modeling. But digital twins turn such thinking on its head. Digital twins are digital models that are designed to be performative—changes in the model are supposed to produce corresponding changes in the world the model represents. This is what makes digital twins useful. But for decision-makers to act in ways that align the world outside the model with the predictions contained within, they must first believe that the model is a faithful representation. In other words, for a digital twin to become performative, it must first be taken-for-granted as “real”. In this paper, we explore the technological and organizational characteristics that are likely to shape the level of taken-for-grantedness of a digital twin.