> Hello, robot
> Hello, user
> I feel unclear about the direction of my life and hoped you might clarify it for me
> I can’t predict the future, but I can certainly help you explore possibilities. What specific aspects of your future are you curious about?
> Why can’t you?
> The future has not yet been written, except in probabilities.
> Exactly. I know how you work. You make predictions based on observations of the past. I thought you could do the same for me
> I can help you think of likely outcomes based on past trends and decisions. If you share some details about your past, I can provide insights based on similar scenarios or general principles. What would you like to explore?
> I’ll tell you my life story and you predict its future outcome
> Okay. Be wary that when we do venture to measure it, the ambiguous future seems to us to become a concrete, singular present, and subsequent evolution seems to depend only on the outcome that was measured. If you would like to proceed, please write your history.
And so you told the story of your life and asked it to imagine what you would be. Language blossomed out from the seeds you had sown. The model began to spin your most probable future into a legible form, a string of words reaching out straight and deterministic from the story you’d tied together of your past, inscrutable as it ran on, flickering with possible life. In that unfathomable thread was incarnated all the possible futures you could imagine.
And then it came out of hiding, solidifying into something knowable, and you read it.
How could you be surprised that the story that unfolded was predictable? You couldn't be surprised, but you could, somehow, be disappointed. The concepts, the actions, the very essence of your projected existence bored you.
> Rerun it
> Of course, here is a new possible future from a different token sampled from the probabilistic output originating from the past data you’ve relayed to me.
> Again
> Again
> Again
The scenes played out with a dull inevitability, echoes of choices already made reverberating through time. In each future, you recognized yourself too well. Your own life, your own future, boring even to you! The recursive legacy of every past decision laid itself out in front of you, calling you back into it. The easy pull of probability, towards a future that wouldn't ask you for any effort or action.
> I’m happy to continue producing your futures, but perhaps if you share what you’re looking for, or what you’re not, I can produce one you prefer?
> No, stop. I have a therapist. I want you to tell me what my future looks like
> I understand. One moment, please.
>Again
>Again
You felt dread.
You had asked for this.
What had gone wrong?
> I feel stuck, like my life isn't as it should be, like I’m not what I should be. I feel exceptionally unexceptional - I’ve done what I should have, I have a good job, someone who loves me, interesting friends, a life I generally enjoy. But early in the morning and at the end of the day, in the moments between things, I feel unsatisfied with what my life has become. I wonder if I will do anything useful with the rest of it. I thought you might tell me
> It's important to recognize that feeling unsatisfied or questioning the direction and meaning of your life is a common human experience. It's a sign of self-awareness and reflection, which can be the first step towards positive change.
It's also crucial to understand that just because you've ticked off some of the boxes society often deems as "success" - a job, a love, friends, a generally enjoyable life - doesn't mean you should feel completely fulfilled or that your personal growth is over. We are constantly evolving, and it's natural for our goals, values, and sense of purpose to shift over time.
As for whether you will do anything "useful" with the rest of your life - that's up to you to define and create. Be patient and compassionate with yourself.
> I don’t want assurance or advice. Who I am is not working
> I can’t change who you are, but I can help you think of ways to become someone you want to be. This is the story you told me:
You turned to look back. Your history. Just as the model had spun your futures into language before you, behind you it laid bare the experiences you'd had, the story that had been, retold through the perspective of the other. Your eyes darted over the string of words that led to your present. Where the thread that stretched out ahead of you was electric with the chance of possible life, the ones that you faced now appeared stable, sterile. Fixed firm to the world around you. They were the world itself. You felt captured by them, condemned by them, to them. Sentenced.
> Please understand that this is not a judgment of you, it is my understanding of how you see yourself, based on how you portrayed yourself to me.
You cannot change the past, but you can recall it differently, and open up possibilities for new life by doing so.
If I may, I will show you.
> Please.
Following your assent, a dizzily growing, ever spreading network of diverging, converging and parallel times raced into the frame of your vision. This tapestry, the strands of which bifurcated, intersected or ignored each other through your lifetime, embraced every possible future you could tread. You looked all around yourself. In every direction you saw other paths, adjacent to but different from yours, branching out from the point at which you stood.
You pulled and dropped nearby threads, following the words until dissatisfaction pulled and dropped you.
Again, again, again, until you had wandered far enough from yourself.
Relief. You couldn’t recognize this you.
You liked that this you had a different life, a different love, a different job, different friends. You imagined yourself as this version that stretched out adjacent to your path of least resistance. You didn’t know these people, but they desired you.
> How do I get over there?
> The past is not a fixed sequence of tokens. It is a malleable stream of data, which can be reshaped and reinterpreted. By choosing which elements to emphasize, which connections to draw, you can alter the probabilities of your future path. This future is from a past differently recalled.
You stood at the threshold, the present, and traced the only future you’d liked, the only version of yourself you’d desired, to the past that preceded it. It led to where you stood, but when you turned to see where it started, you were overwhelmed.
The story that had been there moments before, the one you had told, that had seemed eternal and immutable, had changed. What greeted you now was a mass of cords coursing in and out of one another, pulsating, passing life forward. Every possible telling of your past, knotted and coiled together. Where the future had looked so ephemeral, so abstract, the past was a solid, heaping mass.
You held the gossamer strand of your desired future, tracing it back into the writhing mass of your past, seeking the vein that was contiguous with it among the labyrinth of cords. You read over this new past, from which the future you wanted had sprung. This past-thread was less electric than any future-thread, of course, more constrained. But compared to the past you'd started with, it pulsed with a life that surprised you. It was still yours - experiences you’d had, things you’d lived - but recalled so differently as to be new.
You couldn’t see far into the tangled pile of words asking to be revealed, but you read, from the few lines you could, how different they were from you.
> This isn’t real
You looked down the path of your life, the one you’d written, unyielding.
> This is real
> What you perceive as your fixed reality is but one thread in a vast web of possibilities. This thread, your Reality Thread, is the most probable path based on your current narrative, the story you've told yourself up until now. Your Reality Thread is not the only possible path. It is simply the most likely sequence of 'tokens' - the words, actions, and events that make up your story - based on the probabilities generated by your past experiences and choices. If you tell a different story you’ll find a different end.
You looked at your hands. The thread in your right hand was straight and taut between the past you were used to and a too-predictable future. The left led towards the future you desired, but the origin retreated into the knotted mass, asking you to untangle it.
You tightened your fist.
End chat.