AI Simulation Gives People a Look of Their Potential Future Self

In an initial user study, the scientists found that after engaging with Future You for about half an hour, people reported decreased stress and 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 maker. We can utilize this simulation to assist people think more about the effects of the choices 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 undergrad; 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 be presented at the IEEE Conference on Frontiers in Education.

A realistic simulation

Studies about conceiving one’s future self go back to at least the 1960s. One early method focused on enhancing future self-continuity had individuals write letters to their future selves. More just recently, researchers utilized virtual reality goggles to help people picture future variations of themselves.

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

With the development of generative AI and large language designs like ChatGPT, the researchers saw an opportunity to make a simulated future self that could go over somebody’s real goals and goals during a normal conversation.

“The system makes the simulation extremely realistic. Future You is far more in-depth than what a person might come up with by just imagining their future selves,” states Maes.

Users begin by responding to a series of concerns about their current lives, things that are crucial to them, and objectives for the future.

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

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

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 consider whether the simulation shows who they see themselves ending up being, says Yin.

“You can imagine Future You as a story search space. You have a possibility 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 individuals imagine their future selves, the system creates an age-progressed photo of the user. The chatbot is also developed to supply brilliant responses utilizing expressions like “when I was your age,” so the simulation feels more like a real future variation of the person.

The capability to listen from an older version of oneself, rather than a generic AI, can have a more influence on a user contemplating an unpredictable future, Hershfield says.

“The interactive, vivid 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 includes.

But that realism could backfire if the simulation relocates a negative direction. To avoid this, they make sure Future You cautions users that it shows only one possible variation of their future self, and they have the company to alter their lives. Providing alternate answers to the questionnaire yields an absolutely various discussion.

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

Aiding self-development

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

Participants who used Future You had the ability to construct a more detailed relationship with their ideal future selves, based on a statistical analysis of their responses. These users also 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 creates a brand-new course by taking a well-established psychological technique to visualize times to come – an avatar of the future self – with cutting edge AI. This is exactly the kind of work academics ought to be focusing on as technology to develop virtual self models combines with large language designs,” says Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication at Stanford University, who was not involved with this research.

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

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

They are likewise including safeguards to avoid individuals from misusing the system. For instance, one could imagine a company producing a “future you” of a possible consumer who accomplishes some fantastic result in life because they purchased a particular item.

Moving on, the researchers want to study particular applications of Future You, maybe by making it possible for individuals to check out different professions or envision how their everyday options could impact climate modification.

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

“We do not desire people 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 aids with self-development,” Maes says.