Digital twins and the new alienation of time
ZHANG Sen
Abstract：As a technological artifact for human beings to understand and transform nature,digital twins not only realize the complete,dynamic,and real-time mapping of physical entities through real-time big data collection of the real world,but also realize the real-time information interaction between physical entities and twin models throughout their life cycle.Digital twins have reshaped the modern way of working through technical intervention,but their perception,computational,and generalization capabilities have certain limitations due to the"impossible triangle".Due to the deconstruction of modernity and modes of labor,a novel phenomenon of temporal alienation has emerged with digital twins,manifesting as their domination over workers'time and the disjunction between inner and outer temporality.To transcend temporal alienation,it is essential to overcome three dimensions:personalization of labor time,deceleration,and de-instrumentalization,thereby reclaiming the inherent belonging of free time,escaping the vicious cycle of time acceleration,and reconstructing the existential relationship between humans and time.This approach seeks to discover authentic time value,ultimately fostering the development of individual freedom and conscious activity.
Keywords：digital twinlabour timenew alienation
Publication Date：2025-07-15
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-19(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：8( 24-31 )