Episode 4: The AI Doppelgänger Dilemma

The AI Doppelganger Dilemma | Convergence Podcast with Faisal Hoque & Lauren Hawker Zafer

What happens when an AI creates a perfect digital clone of you, your voice, your mannerisms, even your beliefs without your consent? Welcome to the world of AI doppelgängers, a future where your identity may no longer be yours to control.

In this episode of Convergence, hosts Faisal Hoque (New York) and Lauren Hawker Zafer (Zurich) explore the groundbreaking article “The AI Doppelganger Dilemma” and its far-reaching implications for technology, law, and human identity.
Together, they unpack:

• How AI doppelgängers go beyond deepfakes to replicate a person’s entire narrative and essence.

Why existing privacy and publicity laws fail to protect against interactive digital replicas.

The philosophical, psychological, and ethical crises sparked by unauthorized AI clones.

Emerging proposals like a “digital likeness veto” and calls for new digital personhood rights.

The systemic risks of a post-authentic world where trust, autonomy, and identity are at stake.

Drawing on insights from Oxford philosophers, Georgetown law scholars, and leading tech journalists, this episode asks the toughest questions: Who owns your digital ghost? Is creating an AI clone a form of digital kidnapping? Can society function if we can’t trust what we see and hear?

👉 Tune in to Convergence, the podcast at the intersection of technology, business, and leadership, to discover why the rise of AI doppelgängers could be the defining identity crisis of our time.

Quick Jump To:
00:00 - Introduction to AI doppelganger and identity crisis
01:30 - What AI doppelgangers are and how they are made
03:00 - Risks of AI doppelgangers for ordinary people
04:30 - Difference between AI doppelganger and digital twin
06:00 - Privacy and consent challenges with public data use
07:30 - Public vs private data and implications for identity
09:00 - Legal and identity violations from AI impersonation
10:30 - Use cases and current legal frameworks
12:00 - Need for global laws and legal examples
13:30 - Current tech and future of AI doppelgangers
15:00 - Psychological and social impact on authenticity
16:30 - Limits of AI replicating human identity
18:00 - AI evolving digital personas and social conflicts
19:30 - Real-world impersonation and identity misuse
21:00 - Positive uses and power imbalance risks
22:30 - Responsibility of governments, businesses, individuals
24:00 - Importance of digital literacy to prevent misuse
25:30 - Protecting children from AI manipulation
27:00 - Ownership of digital identity or ‘digital ghost’
28:00 - Closing and call to action for digital identity protection

Convergence: The Signature Series
The lines between technology, business, and humanity are blurring. In a world of constant disruption, success is no longer about mastering one domain — it’s about navigating the pivotal intersections where they converge.

Join Lauren Hawker Zafer and Faisal Hoque for Convergence, the series that deconstructs the complex forces shaping our future. Based on hands-on experience, research, and publications, each episode provides actionable frameworks and candid insights on humanity, business, ethics, transformation, AI, modern leadership, governance, sustainable growth, and philosophy.