AI Simulation Gives People a Look of Their Potential Future Self

In a preliminary user study, the scientists found that after interacting 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 don’t have an actual time maker yet, but AI can be a type of virtual time maker. We can utilize this simulation to help people think more about the consequences 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 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; as well as 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 realistic simulation

Studies about conceptualizing one’s future self return to at least the 1960s. One early technique focused on improving future self-continuity had individuals write letters to their future selves. More recently, researchers utilized virtual reality safety glasses to assist individuals imagine future variations of themselves.

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

With the development of generative AI and big language designs like ChatGPT, the scientists saw an opportunity to make a simulated future self that could discuss somebody’s actual goals and aspirations during a normal conversation.

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

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

The AI system utilizes this details to produce what the researchers call “future self memories” which offer a backstory the model pulls from when communicating with the user.

For instance, the chatbot might talk about the highlights of someone’s future career or answer concerns about how the user conquered a specific challenge. This is possible since ChatGPT has actually been trained on extensive information including individuals talking about their lives, professions, and great and bad experiences.

The user engages with the tool in two ways: through introspection, when they consider their life and goals as they build their future selves, and retrospection, 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 space. You have a chance to hear how a few of your experiences, which may still be emotionally 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 offer brilliant answers utilizing expressions like “when I was your age,” so the simulation feels more like an actual future variation of the person.

The ability to listen from an older variation of oneself, rather than a generic AI, can have a stronger favorable influence on a user pondering an unsure future, Hershfield states.

“The interactive, vivid elements of the platform offer the user an anchor point and take something that could result in distressed rumination and make it more concrete and efficient,” he adds.

But that realism could backfire if the simulation moves in an unfavorable instructions. To avoid this, they ensure Future You warns users that it shows only one potential variation of their future self, and they have the company to alter their lives. Providing alternate responses to the questionnaire yields an absolutely different conversation.

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

Aiding self-development

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

Participants who utilized Future You were able to develop a with their perfect future selves, based on an analytical analysis of their actions. These users likewise reported less stress and anxiety about the future after their interactions. In addition, Future You users stated the conversation felt genuine which their values and beliefs seemed consistent in their simulated future identities.

“This work forges a brand-new path by taking a well-established mental technique to picture times to come – an avatar of the future self – with cutting edge AI. This is precisely the type of work academics should be concentrating on as technology to develop virtual self designs 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 preliminary user study, the researchers continue to fine-tune the methods they develop context and prime users so they have discussions that assist construct a stronger sense of future self-continuity.

“We wish to guide the user to talk about certain topics, rather than asking their future selves who the next president will be,” Pataranutaporn says.

They are likewise adding safeguards to avoid individuals from misusing the system. For example, one might think of a business developing a “future you” of a possible consumer who accomplishes some excellent result in life since they acquired a particular product.

Moving on, the researchers desire to study specific applications of Future You, possibly by making it possible for people to explore various careers or visualize how their everyday options might impact climate change.

They are also gathering data from the Future You pilot to better understand how people use the system.

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