Unfinished Products

Introduced in the late 1990s, Internet of Things (IoT) technology enables interconnected devices to communicate and exchange data (Ashton, 2009). By maturing and scaling, IoT technology become central to establish the Industry 4.0 (Deutschland.de, 2014) and helped organizations in digitizing and connecting their production systems, machines, finished products and workforce.

As all technologies, IoT presents advantages and challenges. For example, by communicate and exchange data across devices, IoT based real-time interactive applications provide immersive and unique digital experiences (Al-Fuqaha A. & Guizani M. & Mohammadi M. & Aledhari M. & Ayyash M., 2015). On the other end, heterogeneity of IoT technologies, inadequate security and limited processing capabilities increase the difficulties and constrains of IoT implementations (Burgess, M., 2018). Furthermore, the complexity and cost of maintaining and updating IoT software can be significant (Gartner, 2022). Balancing these advantages and disadvantages is critical to harnessing IoT’s potential while mitigating its risks.

Billions of IoT connected devices (Statista, 2022) have been creating a large variety of digital products impacting all the major industries (Forbes, 2018). More remarkably, by combining the ability to interconnect devices, exchange data and to derive insight, IoT has facilitated the development of new category of products named Digital Twins. Digital Twins virtually replicate, link and analyse real-world objects’ behaviours (Barricelli B.R. & Casiraghi E. & Fogli D, 2019). Artificial Intelligence (AI) adds to Digital Twins the ability to simulate scenarios and to assess decision-making outcome. Hence, Digital Twins do optimize the final behaviour of the real-word objects (Zhang K. & Cao J. & Maharjan S. & Zhang Y., 2022).

Combining IoT and Generative AI technologies unlocks novel possibilities for Digital Twins as Generative AI improves the analysis, interpretation and the meaningful insights deriving from IoT devices interaction. Generative AI models-based platforms support reusable simulation at scale with complex real and virtual world emulation (Gartner, 2023) and do remove those barriers limiting viability and affordability of Digital Twins.

Combining #IoT and #GenAI technologies unlocks novel possibilities for #DigitalTwins as Gen AI improves the analysis, interpretation and the meaningful insights deriving from IoT devices interaction.

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There are diverse potential use cases where Generative AI could elevate the appliance of IoT technology, from the ability to code automatically new loT devices behaviours, up to facilitate the human-machine interactions (IoT Analytics, 2023). Conversational interface between human and machine increase adoption and reduce the hight users’ digitalization quotient (TS2, 2013) IoT technology demands today. In fact, by means of Natural Language Processing (NLP), users are going to interact with machines and systems conversating fluently and thoroughly (Ferrag M. A. & Debbah M. & Al-Hawawreh M., 2023).

Combining IoT and Generative AI technologies enables concept as Society 5.0 designed to put the human back at the center of Industry 4.0. Society 5.0 provides the opportunity to integrate digital and physical space so to balance economic progress and social needs (Mourtzis D. & Angelopoulos J. & Panopoulos N., 2023).

With Generative AI’s ability of creating synthetic and inference data (Gartner, 2023), IoT technology become less intrusive in people life. By making IoT devices more performing and accurate, Generative AI helps reducing the amount of irrelevant data collected while increasing the personalization of the IoT experience (IoTNow, 2023).

Generative AI has hence the potential to mitigate IoT disadvantages while strengthening its advantages. It can help overcoming heterogeneity obstacles by analysing data from diverse sources and devices so to enable seamless integration and interoperability (Mourtzis D. & Angelopoulos J. & Panopoulos N., 2023).

Generative AI can increase IoT technology security posture by continuously learning and adapting to new threats and vulnerabilities. As most of the cyberattacks use pre-determined models and automation means, by interpretating malicious behaviours Generative AI can for instance prevent security breaches (Ferrag M. A. & Debbah M. & Al-Hawawreh M., 2023).

However, the integration of Generative AI with IoT may raise new concerns. For instance, Generative AI’s inherent complexity and resource requirements could increase the cost and technical expertise needed for end-to-end implementation and maintenance (Business Insider, 2023).

While Generative AI based algorithms could optimize IoT networks’ energy consumption, enhancing their efficiency and sustainability, Generative AI technology itself requires high energy outflow (Ferrag M. A. & Debbah M. & Al-Hawawreh M., 2023) risking offsetting the gain.

Additionally, as AI models become more autonomous, ethical considerations surrounding data privacy, accountability, and transparency become paramount (Gartner, 2022).

Finally, while excelling in logical reasoning, Generative AI models are yet to be proved well-performing in analysing non-language inputs (Zheng O. & Abdel-Aty M. & Wang D. & Wang Z. & Ding S., 2023).

As IoT continues to expand, AI plays a crucial role in enhancing the functionality and user experience of connected devices. By combining IoT and AI, Digital Twins create more advanced ways to integrate and augment real-world objects with their digital-world replica. Generative AI promises to strengthening further the bond between digital and real word as well as empowering more efficient simulations capabilities.

List of References

Al-Fuqaha, A., Guizani, M., Mohammadi, M., Aledhari, M., & Ayyash, M., 2015. Internet of Things: A Survey on Enabling Technologies, Protocols, and Applications. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 17(4), pp.2347-2376. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7123563 [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Ashton, K. (2009) That ‘Internet of Things’ thing. RFiD Journal. Available at: https://www.itrco.jp/libraries/RFIDjournal-That%20Internet%20of%20Things%20Thing.pdf [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Barricelli B.R. & Casiraghi E. & Fogli D. (2019) A Survey on Digital Twin: Definitions, Characteristics, Applications, and Design Implications. IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 167653-167671. Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8901113 [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Burgess, M. (2018) What is the Internet of Things? Wired Explains [Online]. Available at: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/internet-of-things-what-is-explained-iot [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Business Insider (2023) ChatGPT could cost over $700,000 per day to operate. Microsoft is reportedly trying to make it cheaper. [Online]. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/chatgpt-could-cost-over-700000-per-day-to-operate-microsoft-is-reportedly-trying-to-make-it-cheaper-/articleshow/99637548.cms [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Deutschland.de (2014) Industry 4.0 at Hannover Messe[Online].Available at: https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/business/globalization-world-trade/industry-40-at-hannover-messe [Accessed: 04/06/2022].

Gartner (2022) Building a Digital Future: Emergent AI Trends [Online]. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/document/4014200 [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Gartner (2023) Predicts 2023: Simulation Combined With Advanced AI Techniques Will Drive Future AI Investments [Online]. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/document/4022820 [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Ferrag M. A. & Debbah M. & Al-Hawawreh M. (2023) Generative AI for Cyber Threat-Hunting in 6G-enabled IoT Networks. IEEE/ACM CCGrid 2023 Conference Proceedings. Available at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.11751 [Accessed: 03/05/2023].

Forbes (2018) How IoT Is Impacting 7 Key Industries Today [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/insights-inteliot/2018/08/24/how-iot-is-impacting-7-key-industries-today/ [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

IoT Analytics (2023) Generative AI Trend Report [Online]. Available at: https://iot-analytics.com/product/generative-ai-trend-report/ [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

IoTNow (2023) WISeKey is integrating Generative AI to its WISeAI.IO AIoT platform [Online]. Available at: https://www.iot-now.com/2023/03/29/129140-wisekey-is-integrating-generative-ai-to-its-wiseai-io-aiot-platform/ [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Mourtzis D. & Angelopoulos J. & Panopoulos N. (2023) Human–Machine Interface (HMI) in Society 5.0. Future Internet 2023, 15, 162. Available at https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/15/5/162 [Accessed: 03/05/2023].

Statista (2022) Number of IoT connected devices worldwide 2019-2021, with forecasts to 2030 [Online]. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1183457/iot-connected-devices-worldwide/ [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

TS2 (2023) The Role of ChatGPT in Advancing the Internet of Things (IoT) and Connected Devices [Online]. Available at: https://ts2.space/en/the-role-of-chatgpt-in-advancing-the-internet-of-things-iot-and-connected-devices/ [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Zhang K., Cao J., Maharjan S. & Zhang Y. (2022) “Digital Twin Empowered Content Caching in Social-Aware Vehicular Edge Networks,” in IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems Available at: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9399641 [Accessed: 03/05/2023]

Zheng O. & Abdel-Aty M. & Wang D. & Wang Z. & Ding S. (2023) ChatGPT Is on the Horizon: Could a Large Language Model Be All We Need for Intelligent Transportation? [pdf] Available at https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.05382 [Accessed: 03/05/2023].