AI Simulation Gives People a Glance of Their Potential Future Self

In a preliminary user research study, the researchers found that after engaging with Future You for about half an hour, individuals reported reduced anxiety and felt a more powerful sense of connection with their future selves.

“We do not have an actual time maker yet, however AI can be a kind of virtual time machine. We can utilize this simulation to assist people think more about the effects of the options they are making today,” states Pat Pataranutaporn, a recent Media Lab doctoral graduate who is actively developing a program to advance human-AI interaction research study at MIT, and co-lead author of a paper on Future You.

Pataranutaporn is signed up with on the paper by co-lead authors Kavin Winson, a researcher at KASIKORN Labs; and Peggy Yin, a Harvard University undergraduate; along with Auttasak Lapapirojn and Pichayoot Ouppaphan of KASIKORN Labs; and senior authors Monchai Lertsutthiwong, head of AI research at the KASIKORN Business-Technology Group; Pattie Maes, the Germeshausen Professor of Media, Arts, and Sciences and head of the Fluid Interfaces group at MIT, and Hal Hershfield, professor of marketing, behavioral choice making, and psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles. The research study will be presented at the IEEE Conference on Frontiers in Education.

A practical simulation

Studies about conceiving one’s future self return to at least the 1960s. One early method targeted at improving future self-continuity had individuals write letters to their future selves. More recently, researchers made use of virtual reality safety glasses to help people picture future variations of themselves.

But none of these methods were really interactive, restricting the effect they could have on a user.

With the arrival of generative AI and big language models like ChatGPT, the researchers saw a chance to make a simulated future self that might talk about somebody’s actual objectives and aspirations throughout a regular discussion.

“The system makes the simulation extremely reasonable. Future You is much more comprehensive than what an individual might come up with by just imagining their future selves,” says Maes.

Users begin by addressing a series of concerns about their current lives, things that are essential to them, and goals for the future.

The AI system uses this details to create what the researchers call “future self memories” which supply a backstory the model pulls from when engaging with the user.

For circumstances, the chatbot could speak about the highlights of someone’s future career or response questions about how the user overcame a specific challenge. This is possible since ChatGPT has been trained on extensive information involving people speaking about their lives, careers, and excellent and disappointments.

The user engages with the tool in two ways: through introspection, when they consider their life and goals as they construct their future selves, and revision, when they contemplate whether the simulation shows who they see themselves ending up being, states Yin.

“You can picture Future You as a story search area. You have a chance to hear how a few of your experiences, which might still be emotionally charged for you now, might be metabolized over the course of time,” she states.

To assist people imagine their future selves, the system generates an age-progressed image of the user. The chatbot is likewise developed to provide vibrant responses utilizing phrases like “when I was your age,” so the simulation feels more like a real future variation of the person.

The ability to take recommendations from an older variation of oneself, instead of a generic AI, can have a more powerful positive effect on a user contemplating an unpredictable future, Hershfield states.

“The interactive, vibrant parts of the platform give the user an anchor point and take something that could result in anxious rumination and make it more concrete and efficient,” he includes.

But that realism could backfire if the simulation moves in an unfavorable instructions. To prevent this, they ensure Future You warns users that it shows just one possible version of their future self, and they have the firm to change their lives. Providing alternate answers to the survey yields a completely various conversation.

“This is not a prophesy, however rather a possibility,” Pataranutaporn says.

Aiding self-development

To evaluate Future You, they carried out a user study with 344 individuals. Some users communicated with the system for 10-30 minutes, while others either communicated with a generic chatbot or only submitted studies.

Participants who used Future You were able to build a more detailed relationship with their ideal future selves, based on a statistical analysis of their . These users likewise reported less stress and anxiety about the future after their interactions. In addition, Future You users stated the conversation felt genuine and that their worths and beliefs seemed consistent in their simulated future identities.

“This work forges a brand-new path by taking a well-established mental strategy to envision times to come – an avatar of the future self – with cutting edge AI. This is exactly the type of work academics should be concentrating on as innovation to build virtual self models merges with big language designs,” states Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication at Stanford University, who was not involved with this research study.

Building off the outcomes of this initial user research study, the researchers continue to fine-tune the methods they establish context and prime users so they have conversations that help develop a more powerful sense of future self-continuity.

“We want to assist the user to talk about particular subjects, rather than asking their future selves who the next president will be,” Pataranutaporn states.

They are likewise adding safeguards to prevent people from misusing the system. For instance, one could envision a business developing a “future you” of a possible customer who attains some terrific outcome in life since they acquired a particular item.

Moving on, the researchers wish to study specific applications of Future You, maybe by making it possible for individuals to check out different careers or envision how their daily options could affect environment modification.

They are likewise gathering information from the Future You pilot to much better understand how individuals use the system.

“We do not want people to end up being based on this tool. Rather, we hope it is a meaningful experience that assists them see themselves and the world differently, and assists with self-development,” Maes states.