Press

• The Harvard Crimson: Seeing Your Future Self with Future You AI (November 16, 2024)
• European Commission: Want to talk to your much older self? (November 14, 2024)
• Vice: Want Life Advice? This AI Turns You Into an Older Version of Yourself (October 15, 2024)
• Tech Redar: This AI tool lets you confront your future self – and you might like what you find (October 8, 2024)
• MIT News (Front Page): AI simulation gives people a glimpse of their potential future self (October 1, 2024)
• Live Science: ‘Future You’ AI lets you speak to a 60-year-old version of yourself — and it has surprising wellbeing benefits (October 11, 2024)
• Forbes: “Time Traveling Via Generative AI By Interacting With Your Future Self” (October 8, 2024)
• Popular Science: “I spoke to a 60-year-old AI version of myself” (October 3, 2024)
• Netflix: “Tomorrow and I”: Geeked Week Reveals First Look at Sci-fi Anthology Series
• New Scientist: AI tweaks to photos and videos can alter our memories (September 26, 2024)
• FastCompany: Here’s what happens when humans and AI dance together (September 24, 2024)
• Computer Weekly: Will autonomous weapons make humans passive participants in war? (September 16, 2024)
• The Future of You Podcast: Meet Your Future Self #33 (September 6, 2024)

Research

Future You: A Conversation with an AI-Generated Future Self Reduces Anxiety, Negative Emotions, and Increases Future Self-Continuity

To appear in IEEE Frontier in Education

We introduce "Future You," an interactive, brief, single-session, digital chat intervention designed to improve future self-continuity--the degree of connection an individual feels with a temporally distant future self--a characteristic that is positively related to mental health and wellbeing. Our system allows users to chat with a relatable yet AI-powered virtual version of their future selves that is tuned to their future goals and personal qualities. To make the conversation realistic, the system generates a "synthetic memory"--a unique backstory for each user--that creates a throughline between the user's present age (between 18-30) and their life at age 60. The "Future You" character also adopts the persona of an age-progressed image of the user's present self. After a brief interaction with the "Future You" character, users reported decreased anxiety, and increased future self-continuity. This is the first study successfully demonstrating the use of personalized AI-generated characters to improve users' future self-continuity and wellbeing.

The Future You project represents a groundbreaking intersection of psychological science and AI, distinguishing itself through three key innovations:

The Psychology-AI Bridge for Human Flourishing: While many AI applications focus on automation or immediate problem-solving, this project uniquely leverages psychological research on "future self-continuity" as its foundation. Unlike mental health chatbots that offer direct advice or therapeutic interventions, Future You creates a unique space for self-reflection where the AI serves as a mirror rather than a counselor. The AI doesn't provide solutions – instead, it helps users discover their own insights by facilitating a dialogue between their present and future selves, empowering them to be their own agents of change.

Dynamic Personalization: Second, the project's sophisticated personalization architecture sets it apart from both conventional AI interventions and traditional mental health chatbots such as Woebot. Through pre-intervention surveys that assess individual goals, values, and characteristics, the system generates even more highly personalized future self-images and narratives.

Evidence-Based Impact: Drawing from scientific studies that show how increased future self-continuity positively influences saving behavior, academic performance, and mental health, the platform tracks multiple dimensions of personal development. In a randomized controlled trial, we found that even brief interactions with the "Future You" character led to significant improvements. Users reported decreased anxiety levels and demonstrated markedly increased future self-continuity compared to control conditions. This pioneering study represents the first empirical evidence demonstrating how personalized AI-generated characters can enhance users' future self-continuity and overall wellbeing through self-directed insight, rather than traditional AI-guided intervention approaches.

Q+A

What happens to my data?

We anonymize and collect your survey responses and your conversation with your future self for further research to improve Future You.

How accurate is Future You?

Future You cannot predict specific details about your future life–rather, it aims to paint a vivid and realistic picture of what your future life could be like. Our goal is to help illuminate future pathways that may otherwise seem ambiguous, uncertain, or unclear.

Why doesn’t my future self seem like me?

The conversation with the future self is generated in real-time via a large language model that has been personalized based on a pre-intervention survey assessing user future goals and personal qualities. Therefore, its responses are largely dependent on both its foundational model and the data collected in the pre-intervention survey. We recommend being as detailed as possible in the initial survey for the best possible experience.

Is this tool right for me?

Future You is an intervention grounded in empirical and theoretical research on the benefits of future self-continuity as it relates to improvements in long-term thinking, academic performance, financial savings, and mental health and wellbeing. The primary goal of this project is to support reflection on future paths. Read more about our research in our preprint article, linked here.

Curious about what’s next for Future You?

We’re currently looking to make the platform more accessible and to collaborate with institutions to support young people in envisioning their futures. To learn more about ways you can get involved, contact us here or email us at futureyoumit@gmail.com

Team

Pat Pataranutaporn, MIT

Kavin Winson, KBTG

Peggy Yin, Harvard University

Auttasak Lapapirojn, KBTG

Monchai Lertsutthiwong, KBTG

Hal Hershfield, UCLA

Pattie Maes, MIT

Thanawit Tae Prasongpongchai , KBTG

The Project is supported by KBTG