AI Simulation Gives People a Peek of Their Potential Future Self

In a preliminary user research study, the scientists discovered that after interacting with Future You for about half an hour, people reported reduced anxiety and felt a stronger sense of connection with their future selves.

“We don’t have a genuine time maker yet, but AI can be a kind of virtual time maker. We can use this simulation to assist individuals think more about the repercussions of the options they are making today,” says Pat Pataranutaporn, a current Media Lab doctoral graduate who is actively establishing 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 Kavin Winson, a scientist 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 decision making, and psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles. The research study will exist at the IEEE Conference on Frontiers in Education.

A reasonable simulation

Studies about conceiving one’s future self go back to at least the 1960s. One early method targeted at enhancing future self-continuity had people compose letters to their future selves. More just recently, scientists made use of virtual truth safety glasses to help people visualize future versions of themselves.

But none of these techniques were really interactive, limiting the impact they could have on a user.

With the advent of generative AI and big language designs like ChatGPT, the researchers saw an opportunity to make a simulated future self that could discuss someone’s real goals and aspirations throughout a regular conversation.

“The system makes the simulation really realistic. Future You is much more in-depth than what a person could develop by just envisioning their future selves,” says Maes.

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

The AI system utilizes this info to produce what the scientists call “future self memories” which supply a backstory the design pulls from when engaging with the user.

For example, the chatbot could speak about the highlights of somebody’s future profession or answer questions about how the user got rid of a particular obstacle. This is possible due to the fact that ChatGPT has actually been trained on substantial data involving people talking about their lives, careers, and good and bad experiences.

The user engages with the tool in two ways: through self-questioning, when they consider their life and objectives as they construct their future selves, and memory, when they consider 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 some of your experiences, which may still be mentally charged for you now, could be metabolized throughout time,” she states.

To help people visualize their future selves, the system generates an age-progressed photo of the user. The chatbot is also created to provide vibrant responses utilizing phrases like “when I was your age,” so the simulation feels more like a real future variation of the individual.

The capability to take suggestions from an older version of oneself, rather than a generic AI, can have a more powerful positive impact on a user pondering an uncertain future, Hershfield states.

“The interactive, brilliant parts of the platform give the user an anchor point and take something that might lead to anxious rumination and make it more concrete and efficient,” he includes.

But that realism might backfire if the simulation relocates an unfavorable direction. To avoid this, they guarantee Future You cautions users that it reveals only one prospective version of their future self, and they have the agency to change their lives. Providing alternate responses to the survey yields a totally different conversation.

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

Aiding self-development

To examine Future You, they performed a user research study with 344 people. Some users engaged with the system for 10-30 minutes, while others either communicated with a generic chatbot or only completed studies.

Participants who used Future You were able to construct a more detailed relationship with their perfect future selves, based upon an analytical analysis of their reactions. These users also reported less anxiety about the future after their interactions. In addition, Future You users said the conversation felt genuine which their worths and beliefs appeared consistent in their simulated future identities.

“This work forges a brand-new path by taking a well-established psychological technique to picture times to come – an avatar of the future self – with cutting edge AI. This is precisely the type of work academics must be focusing on as technology to build virtual self models merges with large language models,” says Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication at Stanford University, who was not included with this research.

Building off the outcomes of this preliminary user study, the researchers continue to fine-tune the methods they establish context and prime users so they have discussions that assist construct a more powerful sense of future self-continuity.

“We desire to assist the user to speak about specific topics, rather than asking their future selves who the next president will be,” Pataranutaporn says.

They are also including safeguards to prevent people from misusing the system. For example, one could envision a business developing a “future you” of a prospective client who achieves some great outcome in life since they purchased a particular product.

Moving on, the researchers desire to study particular applications of Future You, maybe by making it possible for individuals to explore different careers or picture how their daily options could affect climate modification.

They are likewise collecting information from the Future You pilot to better understand how people use the system.

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