Interdisciplinary researchers at King’s College London, in collaboration with a science fiction author, invited young people aged 13-17 from across the City of London Family of Schools to participate in a creative writing challenge on the topic of “Mirror Machine: digital twins that model, shadow and affect the real world”.
The project aimed to bring diverse young people’s voices into conversation with researchers and innovators working in the fast-growing and wide-ranging domain digital twins, to imagine plausible futures for digital twins in society.
Fifth Form pupil, Alex, won the 15-17 category and was invited to read his story and speak on a panel at the celebration event at King’s College.
Here is an extract from his winning entry “Need For the Shadow.”
“We have come for your daughter.” He states, “The Shadow has decreed that she be taken away. She has been dreaming. Dreams are unpredictable. The Shadow must be able to predict. The Shadow must remove what it cannot predict. The people must be utterly content. Dreams jeopardise contentment.”
