AI Simulation Gives People a Glance of Their Potential Future Self

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

“We do not have a genuine time machine yet, however AI can be a type of virtual time device. We can utilize this simulation to assist people think more about the repercussions of the options they are making today,” says Pat Pataranutaporn, a recent 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 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 study 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, teacher 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 sensible simulation

Studies about conceiving one’s future self go back to a minimum of the 1960s. One early approach targeted at enhancing future self-continuity had individuals write letters to their future selves. More recently, scientists made use of virtual reality goggles to help individuals picture future variations of themselves.

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

With the introduction of generative AI and large language designs like ChatGPT, the researchers saw a chance to make a simulated future self that might go over someone’s actual goals and goals during a typical conversation.

“The system makes the simulation extremely reasonable. Future You is much more comprehensive than what an individual could come up with by simply picturing their future selves,” states Maes.

Users start by addressing a series of questions about their present lives, things that are necessary to them, and goals for the future.

The AI system uses this information to produce what the scientists call “future self memories” which supply a backstory the model pulls from when connecting with the user.

For example, the chatbot might speak about the highlights of somebody’s future career or response questions about how the user conquered a particular difficulty. This is possible since ChatGPT has actually been trained on extensive information involving individuals speaking about their lives, careers, and great and disappointments.

The user engages with the tool in two methods: through self-questioning, when they consider their life and objectives as they build their future selves, and retrospection, when they ponder whether the simulation reflects who they see themselves becoming, says Yin.

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

To help individuals picture their future selves, the system creates an age-progressed image of the user. The chatbot is likewise designed to supply vivid responses using expressions like “when I was your age,” so the simulation feels more like an actual future variation of the person.

The capability to take guidance from an older variation of oneself, instead of a generic AI, can have a more powerful positive impact on a user considering an unsure future, Hershfield says.

“The interactive, brilliant elements of the platform give the user an anchor point and take something that might lead to distressed rumination and make it more concrete and productive,” he adds.

But that realism might backfire if the simulation moves in a negative instructions. To avoid this, they guarantee Future You cautions users that it reveals only one prospective variation of their future self, and they have the firm to alter their lives. Providing alternate answers to the survey yields a totally different discussion.

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

Aiding self-development

To evaluate Future You, they conducted a user study with 344 individuals. Some users interacted with the system for 10-30 minutes, while others either communicated with a generic chatbot or only completed surveys.

Participants who used Future You had the ability to construct a closer relationship with their perfect future selves, based on an analytical analysis of their reactions. These users also reported less stress and anxiety about the future after their interactions. In addition, Future You users said the discussion felt genuine and that their values and beliefs seemed consistent in their simulated future identities.

“This work creates 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 precisely the type of work academics must be focusing on as innovation to construct virtual self models merges with large language models,” states Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication at Stanford University, who was not included with this research study.

Building off the results of this initial user study, the researchers continue to the methods they develop context and prime users so they have conversations that assist build a more powerful sense of future self-continuity.

“We want to assist the user to speak about specific subjects, instead of asking their future selves who the next president will be,” Pataranutaporn states.

They are also including safeguards to prevent individuals from misusing the system. For example, one could imagine a company creating a “future you” of a prospective consumer who achieves some fantastic result in life since they bought a specific product.

Moving on, the researchers wish to study particular applications of Future You, perhaps by enabling individuals to check out various careers or envision how their everyday choices could affect climate modification.

They are also collecting information from the Future You pilot to much better comprehend how individuals utilize the system.

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