Geografia e intelligenza artificiale: spazialità, reti, narrazioni nella società algoritmica
N. 1 (2026)
L’intelligenza artificiale come modello della realtà. Riflessioni intorno ai gemelli digitali
Abstract
Questo contributo esplora criticamente il paradigma dei gemelli digitali (digital twin), analizzandone lo sviluppo tecnologico, le applicazioni emergenti e le implicazioni epistemologiche e spaziali. L’adozione crescente dei gemelli digitali in ambiti quali la produzione industriale, la pianificazione urbana, la medicina e la modellazione climatica riflette una transizione paradigmatica nella relazione tra modelli digitali e realtà fisica. La tecnologia, sostenuta dall’intelligenza artificiale e da sistemi di acquisizione e gestione dati avanzati, si configura come una replica dinamica e interattiva della realtà, in grado di supportare il processo decisionale tramite simulazioni predittive. Tuttavia, si evidenziano le criticità legate alla fiducia nei modelli, alla selezione delle variabili significative, ai rischi di standardizzazione e all’accentuarsi delle disuguaglianze regionali nell’accesso e nell’implementazione di tali strumenti. I gemelli digitali emergono così non solo come artefatto tecnologico, ma come oggetto spazialmente e cognitivamente performativo, la cui adozione solleva interrogativi etici, politici e metodologici riguardo alla rappresentazione e alla trasformazione dei territori.
Riferimenti bibliografici
- Adreani L., Bellini P., Fanfani M., Nesi P., Pantaleo G. (2024). Smart city digital twin framework for real-time multi-data integration and wide public distribution. IEEE Access, 12: 1-27. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3406795.
- Aleke C.U., Ovie E.O., Asere J.B., Oriakhi E.A., Igah G.C., Ajibade O.E., Egbuna I.K. (2025). Digital twins for climate resilient infrastructure: simulating environmental impact on buildings. Asian Journal of Geographical Research, 8(2): 132-41. DOI: 10.9734/ajgr/2025/v8i2270.
- Balland P.-A., Boschma R. (2024). An evolutionary approach to regional development traps in European regions. Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG), 2420, Utrecht University.
- Batty M. (2018). Digital twins. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 45: 817-993. DOI: 10.1177/2399808318796416.
- Batty M. (2024). Digital twins in city planning. Nature Computational Science, 4: 192-199. DOI: 10.1038/s43588-024-00606-7.
- Baudrillard J. (1983). Simulations. New York: Semiotexte.
- Bonin O., Frankhauser P. (2025). Digital twins versus simulation models and planning concepts: Increasing the resemblance between a digital twin and the modeled territory to facilitate the construction and evaluation of urban scenarios. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, Vol. 0(0): 1-16. DOI: 10.1177/23998083251318474.
- Boyes H., Watson T. (2022). Digital twins: An analysis framework and open issues. Computers in Industry, 143: 103763. DOI 10.1016/j.compind.2022.103763.
- Casola L., a cura di (2023). Opportunities and challenges for digital twins in biomedical research. Proceedings of a Workshop in Brief. National Academy of Engineering; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. DOI: 10.17226/26922.
- Che Haron R., Muhd Zafir N.B. (2025). Digital twin application in construction cost management. Planning Malaysia, 23(1): 81-96. DOI: 10.21837/pm.v23i35.1665.
- Cimino C., Negri E., Fumagalli L. (2019). Review of digital twin applications in manufacturing. Computers in Industry, 113: 103-130. DOI: 10.1016/j.compind.2019.103130.
- Garau C., Nesi P., Paoli I., Paolucci M., Zamperlin P. (2020). A big data platform for smart and sustainable cities: Environmental monitoring case studies in Europe. In: Gervasi O. et al., a cura di, International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (ICCSA). Cham: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-58820-5_30.
- Gil J., Petrova-Antonova D., Kemp G.J. (2024). Redefining urban digital twins for the federated data spaces ecosystem: A perspective. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 0(0). DOI: 10.1177/23998083241302578.
- Glaessgen E., Stargel D.S. (2012). Digital twin paradigm for future NASA and US Air Force vehicles. Paper for the 53rd Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference: Special Session on the Digital Twin: 1-14. DOI: 10.2514/6.2012-1818.
- Goodchild M.F., Connor D., Fotheringham, A.S. et al. (2024). Digital twins in urban informatics. Urban Info, 3(1): 16. DOI: 10.1007/s44212-024-00048-6.
- Grieves M. (2014). Digital twin: manufacturing excellence through virtual factory replication. Whitepaper. DOI: 10.20944/preprints202305.1758.v1.
- Grieves M., Vickers J. (2017). Digital twin: Mitigating unpredictable, undesirable emergent behavior in complex systems. In: Kahlen J., Flumerfelt S., Alves A., eds., Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Complex Systems. Cham: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-38756-7_4.
- Hui Y., Ma X., Su Z., Cheng N., Yin Z., Luan T. H., Chen Y. (2022). Collaboration as a service: Digital-twin-enabled collaborative and distributed autonomous driving. IEEE Internet Things J., 9 (19): 18607-18619. DOI: 10.1109/jiot.2022.3161677.
- Lei B., Janssen P., Stoter J., Biljecki F. (2023). Challenges of urban digital twins: A systematic review and a Delphi expert survey. Automation in Construction, 147: 104716. DOI: 10.1016/j.autcon.2022.104716.
- Lei B., Liang X., Biljecki F. (2024). Integrating human perception in 3D city models and urban digital twins. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 10: 211-218. DOI: 10.5194/isprs-annals-x-4-w5-2024-211-2024.
- Lévy P. (1994). L’Intelligence collective. Pour une anthropologie du cyberespace. Paris: La Découverte, trad. it. (2002), L’ intelligenza collettiva. Per un’antropologia del cyberspazio. Milano: Feltrinelli.
- Martell C. (2024). Pentagon explores military uses of large language models. The Washington Post, February 20, 2024: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/20/pentagon-ai-llm-conference/ (consultato il 12 dicembre 2025).
- Mun H., Han K., Damiani E., Yeun H.K., Kim T.Y., Martino L., Yeun C.Y.,(2025). A comprehensive survey on digital twin: Focusing on security threats and requirements. IEEE Access, 13: 73362-73390. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3563621.
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – NASEM (2023). Foundational Research Gaps and Future Directions for Digital Twins. Washington DC: National Academies Press.
- Nativi S., Craglia M. (2023). Digital twins of the earth. In: Daya Sagar B.S., Cheng Q., McKinley J., Agterberg F., eds., Encyclopedia of Mathematical Geosciences. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Cham: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-85040-1_457.
- Oettl F., Eckart L., Schilp J. (2023). Cost estimation approach of a digital twin implementation in industry. Procedia CIRP, 118: 318-323. DOI: 10.1016/j.procir.2023.06.055.
- Qanazi S., Leclerc E., Bosredon P. (2025). Integrating social dimensions into urban digital twins: A review and proposed framework for social digital twins. Smart Cities, 8(23). DOI: 10.3390/smartcities8010023.
- Romero-Goyeneche O.Y., Boschma R., Li D. (2025). The Geography of the Green, Digital and Twin Technological and Scientific Specialisation in Europe. Technical Report, Project: Strategies for just and equitable transitions in Europe (ST4TE).
- Smith B. (1995). On drawing lines on a map. In: Frank A.U., Kuhn W., Mark D.M., eds., Spatial information theory: Proceedings of COSIT 1995. New York: Springer.
- Tomczyk M., van der Valk H. (2022). Digital twin paradigm shift: The journey of the digital twin definition. Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2022), 2: 90-97. DOI: 10.5220/0010997600003179.
- Turco A. (1988). Verso una teoria geografica della complessità. Milano: Unicopli.
- Turco A. (2010). Configurazioni della territorialità. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
- van der Valk H., Haße H., Möller F., Arbter M., Henning J.-L., Otto B. (2020). A taxonomy of digital twins. AMCIS 2020 Proceedings, Organizational Transformation & Information Systems (SIGORSA) 2018: 1-10.
- van Meerten J., Smit K. (2025). The impact of digital twin technology on the policy lifecycle in government agencies and the role of value-sensitive design in guiding its ethical development. ICSeB ’24: Proceedings of the 2024 8th International Conference on Software and e-Business: 37-44. DOI: 10.1145/3715885.3715891.
- Wan L., Jin Y., Echenique M., Batty M., Wegener M. (2024). From urban modelling to city digital twins – Reflections from the applied urban modelling (AUM) symposia. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 0(0). DOI: 10.1177/23998083241279601.
- Ye X., Goodchild M. (2025). Toward ethical geodesign in the urban digital twin era. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 45(4): 721-725. DOI: 10.1177/0739456X251359233.