The Double Double Glitch: How Our Identical Twins Broke Universal’s AI Logic

Jul 29

4 min read

Okay, so we’re walking into Universal Studios — a place that boasts AI-enhanced facial recognition at the gates, promising magic and efficiency. And bam — we break the system. Again.

Now here’s the setup: We have identical twin boys. We also have a husband who announces his name with the flair of a telenovela villain with one arm dramatically extended, ready to duel park security if needed. And we’re seasoned passholders, so the system already has multiple images of our family stored.

This should’ve been smooth.

It wasn’t.

The Glitch Heard 'Round the Gate'

First up: Néstor (child) — face scanned, ding! Access granted.

Next: Thomas (child) — face scanned, ding! Also granted.

Third: Néstor (adult, a.k.a. Dad) — face scanned… error. The system pulls up Thomas’s picture and flags it as a mismatch.

Boom. The Double Double.

You see, what broke the system wasn’t just that the twins looked alike — it’s that the AI couldn’t comprehend that one name could belong to two people in the same family. So instead of matching face to ticket, it tripped over a logic rule that said a name must equal one face.

And that’s when my husband, caught completely off guard, throws out his now-iconic line:

“I am Néstor!” El Macho enters the chat.

AI Doesn’t Do Gray Area

Here’s the real kicker: the system isn’t doing advanced AI logic — it’s doing rule-based filtering. Someone told it, “One name, one face, one ticket.” And it’s enforcing that rule without nuance.

Forget context. Forget the fact that he’s clearly a grown man and not a young child.
Forget that his photo should be stored under an adult ticket and it showed a child’s face.
Forget that both kids have separate, paid-for, unique passes.

Instead, the system goes:

“Sorry, this face doesn’t match this name. Fraud alert. Do not pass go. Do not collect Butterbeer.”

The Real Bug: Human Logic

This isn’t just a bug in Universal’s ticketing system — it’s a microcosm of a bigger issue: human-made logic rules pretending to be AI.

Humans introduced the flawed assumption that “name = person = one face forever.” And when real life — with its twins, generational naming, and unpredictable chaos — enters the frame, the tech crumbles.

Even TSA has the same problem. When you go through CLEAR or any facial-recognition airport security, identical twins regularly break the system. And don’t even get me started on the dental records thing — our boys lose teeth in the same order. Their x-rays are basically copy-paste.

A Funhouse of Errors

Let’s recap the layers of irony:

Twin 1 enters — system saves a new photo.
Twin 2 enters — system misattributes Twin 1’s new photo.
Dad enters — system pulls Twin 2’s misattributed photo, accuses Dad of fraud.
Dad has an adult ticket, system shows a child’s face and still doesn't flag it.
Staff is confused, waves him through like, “Whatever, dude.”

All that tech. All those promises of biometric security. And the gate is still run by "meh, you look fine" human discretion.

The Tech Truth Behind the Glitch

On the surface, the rules make sense:

One face. One name. One human being.

But here’s the irony: the very way we’ve defined “uniqueness” is now outdated.

We’ve always believed that a person could be reduced to their attributes — a photo, a fingerprint, a dental record, DNA. Those are supposed to be our ultimate identifiers, the “absolute truths” of who we are.

Except… in our family, those truths break down.

Our twins are 99.9% identical. Their faces fool facial recognition. Their teeth fall out in the same order. Their DNA matches so closely that, biologically, either one could parent the same child. And layered on top of that, they even share a name with their dad.

So when the system says, “Only one person can be this person,” it’s not just a tech glitch — it’s exposing a flaw in how we define and measure identity. In the age of AI, those absolutes we once swore by are no longer reliable; what used to be “edge cases” are now everyday stress tests.

The old rules can’t handle it. Because the assumption that each human being is a perfectly unique data point? That doesn’t always hold true anymore.

And that’s the lesson for business leaders: in the age of AI, don’t build systems on outdated absolutes. Build for complexity. Build for nuance. Build for the possibility that even “truths” can break.

Because my kids didn’t just break a theme park scanner. They broke the myth that one person can ever be defined by one rule.