Future You: A Conversation with an AI-Generated Future Self Reduces Anxiety, Negative Emotions, and Increases Future Self-Continuity
This addresses mental health and wellbeing for individuals aged 18-30 by improving connection to their future selves, representing a novel application of personalized AI characters.
The study tackled the problem of low future self-continuity by introducing 'Future You,' an AI chat intervention where users converse with a virtual future self, resulting in decreased anxiety and increased future self-continuity after a brief interaction.
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.