AI Simulation Gives People a Peek of Their Potential Future Self

In a preliminary user study, the researchers found that after connecting with Future You for about half an hour, individuals reported decreased anxiety and felt a stronger sense of connection with their future selves.

“We don’t have a real time maker yet, but AI can be a type of virtual time device. We can use this simulation to assist people believe more about the effects of the options they are making today,” states 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 joined on the paper by co-lead authors Kavin Winson, a scientist at KASIKORN Labs; and Peggy Yin, a Harvard University undergrad; 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 will exist at the IEEE Conference on Frontiers in Education.

A realistic simulation

Studies about conceiving one’s future self return to a minimum of the 1960s. One early technique focused on improving future self-continuity had individuals write letters to their future selves. More recently, scientists used virtual truth safety glasses to help people visualize future variations of themselves.

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

With the arrival of generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT, the scientists saw a chance to make a simulated future self that could go over someone’s actual objectives and aspirations throughout a normal discussion.

“The system makes the simulation extremely reasonable. Future You is far more in-depth than what an individual could develop by simply imagining their future selves,” states Maes.

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

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

For instance, the chatbot could talk about the highlights of somebody’s future career or response questions about how the user conquered a particular challenge. This is possible since ChatGPT has been trained on substantial information including individuals speaking about their lives, professions, and good and bad experiences.

The user engages with the tool in two methods: through introspection, when they consider their life and goals as they build their future selves, and retrospection, when they ponder whether the shows who they see themselves becoming, states Yin.

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

To assist people picture their future selves, the system creates an age-progressed image of the user. The chatbot is likewise developed to offer vibrant answers using expressions like “when I was your age,” so the simulation feels more like an actual future variation of the person.

The capability to listen from an older version of oneself, rather than a generic AI, can have a more powerful favorable influence on a user pondering an unsure future, Hershfield states.

“The interactive, vibrant elements of the platform offer the user an anchor point and take something that could lead to anxious rumination and make it more concrete and productive,” he adds.

But that realism could backfire if the simulation relocates a negative instructions. To prevent this, they ensure Future You warns users that it reveals just one prospective variation of their future self, and they have the firm to alter their lives. Providing alternate answers to the questionnaire yields a completely various conversation.

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

Aiding self-development

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

Participants who utilized Future You had the ability to build a better relationship with their perfect future selves, based on a statistical analysis of their responses. These users likewise reported less stress and anxiety about the future after their interactions. In addition, Future You users said the conversation felt sincere which their values and beliefs seemed consistent in their simulated future identities.

“This work creates a new course by taking a reputable mental technique 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 technology to develop virtual self designs merges with big language designs,” says Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication at Stanford University, who was not included with this research study.

Building off the outcomes of this initial user research study, the scientists continue to tweak the methods they establish context and prime users so they have discussions that help develop a stronger sense of future self-continuity.

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

They are also adding safeguards to prevent people from misusing the system. For circumstances, one could think of a business creating a “future you” of a prospective client who attains some fantastic result in life due to the fact that they purchased a specific product.

Moving forward, the researchers wish to study particular applications of Future You, maybe by making it possible for individuals to check out various professions or imagine how their daily options might affect climate change.

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

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