We all wish we could get our future selves to advise our present selves. Now, according to The Guardian, we can:

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have built an AI-powered chatbot that simulates a user’s older self and dishes out observations and pearls of wisdom. The aim is to encourage people to give more thought today to the person they want to be tomorrow.

With a profile picture that is digitally aged to show youthful users as wrinkly, white-haired seniors, the chatbot generates plausible synthetic memories and draws on a user’s present aspirations to spin tales about its successful life.

“The goal is to promote long-term thinking and behaviour change,” said Pat Pataranutaporn, who works on the Future You project at MIT’s Media Lab. “This could motivate people to make wiser choices in the present that optimise for their long-term wellbeing and life outcomes.”

In one conversation, a student who hoped to be a biology teacher asked the chatbot, a simulated 60-year-old version of herself, about the most rewarding moment in her career. The chatbot said it was a retired biology teacher in Boston and recalled a special moment when it helped a struggling student turn their grades around. “It was so gratifying to see the student’s face light up with pride and accomplishment,” the chatbot said.

This seems like an ideal application for a chatbot – so long as the advice isn’t hallucinated.

Read their coverage here.