AI Simulation Gives People a Look of Their Potential Future Self

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

“We do not have an actual time machine yet, but AI can be a type of virtual time machine. We can use this simulation to help individuals think more about the repercussions of the choices they are making today,” states 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 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, teacher of marketing, behavioral choice 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 practical simulation

Studies about conceiving one’s future self return to at least the 1960s. One early approach aimed at future self-continuity had people compose letters to their future selves. More just recently, scientists utilized virtual reality safety glasses to assist individuals picture future versions of themselves.

But none of these techniques were extremely interactive, limiting the effect they might have on a user.

With the arrival of generative AI and big language designs like ChatGPT, the scientists saw a chance to make a simulated future self that could go over someone’s real goals and aspirations throughout a normal conversation.

“The system makes the simulation very realistic. Future You is a lot more comprehensive than what a person might develop by just picturing their future selves,” states Maes.

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

The AI system utilizes this info to create what the researchers call “future self memories” which provide a backstory the design pulls from when interacting with the user.

For circumstances, the chatbot could talk about the highlights of somebody’s future career or response questions about how the user got rid of a particular challenge. This is possible since ChatGPT has actually been trained on substantial data involving people speaking about their lives, careers, and excellent and bad experiences.

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

“You can think of Future You as a story search area. You have a possibility to hear how some of your experiences, which might still be emotionally charged for you now, could be metabolized throughout time,” she states.

To assist individuals visualize their future selves, the system produces an age-progressed image of the user. The chatbot is also designed to offer vivid answers using expressions like “when I was your age,” so the simulation feels more like a real future version of the individual.

The capability to listen from an older variation of oneself, rather than a generic AI, can have a stronger positive effect on a user pondering an unsure future, Hershfield says.

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

But that realism might backfire if the simulation relocates an unfavorable instructions. To avoid this, they make sure Future You cautions users that it reveals just one possible variation of their future self, and they have the company to change their lives. Providing alternate answers to the survey yields a totally different conversation.

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

Aiding self-development

To examine Future You, they performed 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 were able to construct a closer relationship with their perfect future selves, based on a statistical analysis of their actions. These users also reported less anxiety about the future after their interactions. In addition, Future You users said the conversation felt genuine and that their worths and beliefs appeared consistent in their simulated future identities.

“This work creates a brand-new course by taking a well-established psychological strategy to visualize times to come – an avatar of the future self – with cutting edge AI. This is exactly the kind of work academics need to be focusing on as innovation 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 results of this initial user research study, the scientists continue to fine-tune the ways they develop context and prime users so they have discussions that assist construct a stronger sense of future self-continuity.

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

They are also adding safeguards to prevent people from misusing the system. For instance, one might think of a company producing a “future you” of a potential consumer who accomplishes some fantastic outcome in life because they purchased a particular product.

Moving forward, the scientists desire to study specific applications of Future You, possibly by allowing individuals to explore various professions or envision how their daily options might affect environment change.

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

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