Towards Public Opinion Digital Twin: A Conceptual Prototype

This paper proposes a novel modeling concept, the “public opinion digital twin,” for public opinion analysis. The public opinion digital twin can be regarded as an experimental sandbox for social science. By digitalizing public data acquired from cyberspace into digital models, the modeling enables practical simulation, data analytics, scenario reflection, and decision support in a digital space with fine controllability, so that all possible evolutions of the research target can be analyzed. By simply inputting or filtering variables, any number of future scenarios are simulated, the effect models of each strategy for coping with public opinion are presented, and the optimized solution can be derived from continuous deep learning. If a robust digital twin is established and the required digital replicas are constantly updated, the system can perform risk assessments and trend predictions for social events. In this case, public opinion information can provide intelligent decision support for governments or enterprises and significantly facilitate social loss aversion, which will greatly advance the revolution in production, dissemination, and guidance.