Dutch Professor Builds AI Digital Twin to Teach After Death

A Dutch professor is building an AI digital twin of himself so his lectures can keep going after he is gone, and the internet is already split on whether that is beautiful or unsettling.

Jan Rotmans, sixty-five, is a professor of transition studies. He told Dutch public broadcaster NOS on Saturday that he is having a digital version of himself built, according to Anadolu Agency. The goal is simple: lectures and answers to questions, even when he can no longer give them.

Who is Jan Rotmans?

Rotmans studies how societies change, from energy systems to climate policy. He has lived with metastatic prostate cancer for almost two years. Doctors gave him five years back in 2024, according to Dutch outlet TPO.

He says his condition is stable and that recent medical results have been encouraging. So this is not a deathbed stunt. It is a planned way to capture decades of work while he is still around to shape it.

How the AI digital twin gets built

The project is run by The Synths, a studio that makes digital humans. The same studio previously made a virtual likeness of former Dutch footballer Ruud Gullit. The AI digital twin will be trained on dozens of Rotmans books, hundreds of scientific publications and years of recorded lectures.

His voice, image, sound and facial expressions were recorded last week. A first online version is expected before the end of 2026. After that, the team plans a hologram that could appear on stage and address a live audience.

Why he wants it

Rotmans says the point is to pass on what he knows about societal change to future generations. In his words, reported by TPO in Dutch, this way he can still be in places where he no longer is.

He also wants to talk to the twin himself. He told NOS he might use it to discuss problems he has raised before, and it could even suggest solutions he has not thought of. That is a wild idea: a professor brainstorming with his own copy.

The pushback

Not everyone is sold. Iris van Rooij, an AI professor at Radboud University, called the project an undesirable development, according to Yeni Safak. Her worry is that people may attribute emotions and real intelligence to an algorithm.

That fear is easy to understand. A model trained on someone's writing can sound exactly like them while still producing answers that person never would have given. Misleading replies are a real risk, and a hologram on stage could make the illusion feel even stronger.

Bioethicists have been warning about this for a while. A recent commentary on digital immortality argues that agreeing to share birthday photos online is not the same as consenting to become an AI version of themselves after death. Rotmans, at least, is giving explicit consent while alive.

What the tech can and cannot do

Studios like The Synths combine voice cloning, face capture and a language model that has read everything the person wrote. The result can answer questions in a familiar style and with familiar ideas. It cannot live through new events or change its mind the way a real person does.

That gap matters for a scholar whose field is change itself. Rotmans has said the twin could surface ideas he missed, but the system only recombines what it was given. Anything new it says will be a guess dressed up in his voice, which is why clear labelling will matter once the first version goes online.

Why Gen Z should care

Most of us already leave huge piles of posts, voice notes and videos behind. The tech that turns that pile into a talking copy is getting cheaper every year. The Rotmans case is an early, very public test of what happens when the person being copied actually signs off.

It also raises questions that will land on everyone eventually. Who owns an AI digital twin after someone dies? Who decides what it is allowed to say? And should a lecture from a simulation count as teaching, or as a tribute?

For now, the experiment is small and tightly controlled, with one willing professor and one studio. The first online version should show how convincing it is. Whether it feels like a legacy or a gimmick will depend on how honest the makers are about what the twin is and is not. More on the broader debate is in our tech coverage, and you can follow the wider world news too.