A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool is allowing people to have conversations with a future version of themselves.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed Future You, a system aimed at helping people have a sense of their “future self-continuity”.
Future You allows people to have a text-based conversation with an AI-generated simulation of themselves at age 60.
It aims to positively influence how people make long-term decisions by looking at the longer-term impacts of decisions.
An initial user study found using the device for just half an hour decreased anxiety and created a stronger sense of connection with the future.
“We don’t have a real time machine yet, but AI can be a type of virtual time machine,” MIT researcher Pat Pataranutaporn said in a paper on Future You.
“We can use this simulation to help people think more about the consequences of the choices they are making today.”
The research paper said studies about conceptualising one’s future self dated back to at least the 1960s when people were asked to write letters to their future selves.
With the advent of generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT, the researchers saw an opportunity to make a simulated future self that could discuss someone’s actual goals and aspirations during a normal conversation.
“To help people visualize their future selves, the system generates an age-progressed photo of the user,” the research report said.
“The chatbot is also designed to provide vivid answers using phrases like ‘when I was your age’, so the simulation feels more like an actual future version of the individual.”
The full report is on the MIT website.
