Get advice from your future self

Do you ever wish you could talk to your older self? With an AI-generated simulation created by MIT researchers and their colleagues, you can.

Dubbed Future You, the system aims to promote a better sense of future self-continuity, a psychological concept that describes how connected people feel with their future self. Research has shown that this can improve long-term decision-making.

“Future You is much more detailed than what a person could come up with by just imagining their future selves,” says MIT professor Pattie Maes, a coauthor of a paper on the work. Users begin by answering a series of questions about their current lives, their goals, and what is important to them. A large language model then draws on this information to create an interactive simulation that might, for example, answer questions about what someone’s future could be like or offer advice about potential life paths.

After interacting with Future You for half an hour, people reported decreased anxiety and greater connection with their future selves.

“AI can be a type of virtual time machine,” says Pat Pataranutaporn, SM ’20, PhD ’24, a lead author of the paper. “We can use this simulation to help people think more about the consequences of the choices they are making today.”