^This conference I went to was called the "digital twin symposium." Sounds stupid as hell, right? That's cause it is- the people presenting at the digital twin symposium were unable to keep an internally consistent definition of a "digital twin" so each presenter had a different working definition for their own work
Someone else in the audience as well pointed out something I'd been thinking at the same time, "digital twin" is just a marketing term to get people hyped about technology that has already been here for a long time [models, simulations] as to ride the next wave of the tech craze along the lines of cryptocurrency, NFTs, AI, [we can do that to! GO GO GADGET DIGITAL TWINS]- One of the presenters that I saw as particularly slimey and transparently had no clue what he was talking about said he "encouraged" the personification that came with the term digital twins & tried to equate it to twins in real life, using baby pictures to talk about software [which I may view as gauche or a tad intellectually offensive]
[very funny moment with this guy where he was fumbling with his slides trying to get the video to play on something but not the audio, couldn't figure out how to do it, said he'd "just let this one play out" and tried to talk over the video but was not loud enough to be heard over it LMAO][LMAO IN AN "IT HURTS YOU'RE HERE" WAY]
At the beginning of the symposium the host introduced himself, who it seemed obvious to me was A Charismatic Idiot and used slides that had a lot of buzzwords, but not within an actionable context where it ""meant anything"" [like putting machine learning, ai, robotics, & digital twin all next to eachother in a bunch of hexagons with the vague idea of "WE'RE SYNERGIZING THESE CONCEPTS," bereft of any actionable context.] He pitched to the audience: alright, you've see my traffic simulation flowcharts, what's missing from the equation? People said maybe you're not taking rideshares, or taxis, or busses, or the feeling of the driver into account. When everyone had proven themselves stumped he announced with a wry smirk, "Close! What we're missing is PROFIT!" Naturally. It was our mistake to think we were talking about variables that may effect driving when talking about traffic simulations. In the "improved" version, there were dollar amounts of "cost" for how traffic "costed" something [it was unclear to me and everyone where these numbers came from which ranged from $60 to $180 on the Y axis and 30seconds to 4 minutes spent in traffic on the X, is it gas money? is it highway toll generated? later it was revealed the figure was likely[not even entirely elucidated still] the supposed amount of work lost from workers driving instead of working. Okay. You just made up fake money to get people to care about your seattle highway ideas & think you're clever, I got it.]
Host straight up said he asked chatGPT what to do with his and traffic simulation flowcharts LOL [NOT HILARIOUS WHY IS THIS GUY IN THE SAME ROOM WITH REAL SCIENTISTS AS IF HE EQUATES]He continued to espouse his work as revolutionary because he's the only person who's dared to combine the colleges of engineering and business, which I'm sure everyone who knows me knows how much I love begging businesses to find worth in beneficial and worthwhile fields of study by shouting BUT WAIT!!! IT'S PROFITABLE!!! YOU CAN SELL IT I SWEAR
[and if you can't do that, you can always engineer weapons for the military and never have to worry about money again! I got invited to a workshop about electronics engineering for military purposes at the end of this. I HOPE I DIE YOU ALL KNOW I HATE THE IDEA OF THAT RIGHT]
If I said I thought this guy was credible in most respects I'd be betraying my sensibilities. If I had a video of the presentation I am SO SURE you'd pick up on what I mean, there's a notable duplicity in the way this guy bragged whilst showing nothing of warranted value in his work, and the politician-esque way he dodged answers by saying a whole lot of shit that did not relate at all to the question...
Something particularly tone-deaf and was said nearly as an aside [but spoke leagues about the position these people come from] is that one of the presenters from a rocket company talked about how his car was broken into and stolen from, and in response he [sic] "got to buy toys to make his wife feel better" [in which case "toys" refers to security cameras/devices.] The lighthearted tone it was mentioned in and the illustration that getting burgled in no way affected him materially was just. So removed from reality. He asked "Who here's been to Barcelona?" and a portion of the room raised their hands. He flew in from somewhere else in the country to give this talk here and will fly back in the same day. He talked about their collaboration with israel in furthering the future of technology, while in the same talk bringing up the "atrocity of the ukraine/russian war" in no uncertain terms, but no one in the room brings up the most important and present conflict in the world THAT THEY HAVE MATERIAL POWER OVER AND IS RELEVANT TO THEIR WORK! It strikes me that the difference in how both conflicts are presented [the war in ukraine vs the palestinian genocide] mirrors that of the current american hegemony: the white house actively condemns russia and supports ukraine, but blusters and looks shyly away as it gives more money, weapons, and american troops to reducing the gaza strip to a smoking crater. People don't know what to make of this behavior. They'll follow suit, blush and stutter if you mention the genocide and in doing so quietly acquiesce to the bombing of every hospital in the area. they only mention israel in a slightly hushed tone as if there's nothing more important they may think to recall about it. It just makes me **more mad than anything** and I do feel like a coward for not being openly oppositional [and in this way I'm collaborative] to the indifference in the room with all these important people, people who will throw money at whatever makes them feel better, *just because they can.* I remember feeling a similar way in high school when all the girls were invited to a talk with exxon mobil about opportunities for women in the field of business [Explicitly stated selling oil #GIRLS CAN HEAT THE GLOBE TOO] and while in my head I was in opposition to it ["lol these people don't know I'm just here for the sandwiches"] What good does that do if I don't at least verbally challenge them, and bring the idea to the table to everyone else listening as well? AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Like. I think some of the research presented was cool and worthwhile [the offshore windfarms! The bridge sensors!] I LIKE ELECTRONICS I'M EXCITED I GET TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS but it darkens my outlook on this field I was so excited about when I see in talks like this, important research having to bend to the ear of the military industrial complex or capital. sigh, but it was naive of course to hope for better...