I kept a journal from Feb 3 1983 (the day my freshman high school English teacher assigned a journal entry as homework) through about 1992 (when I was busy in grad school, though I did write long emails to my fiancee). As I was wrapping up my dissertation, I started blogging in 1999. At no point in my life did I write the kind of free-flowing personal musings that I imagine would help an AI bot let you converse with your younger self.
This is a fascinating experiment in time travel.
i kept diaries for about 10+ years of my life, writing almost everyday — about my dreams, fears, secrets
the content ranged from complaining about homework, to giddiness i felt from talking to my crush
some days were very mundane, some rather insightful pic.twitter.com/CzA1C20U4a
— michelle huang (@michellehuang42) November 27, 2022
after scribing a ton of journal entries and feeding them into the model, i got working responses that felt eerily similar to how i think i would have responded during that time
first, i asked her a bunch of questions about her about her worldview: pic.twitter.com/u4L62uGcWb
— michelle huang (@michellehuang42) November 27, 2022
2) when i prompted her to write me a letter into the present day
while reading this, i felt the rumination spirals — the ones that i fall into sometimes when i feel shame or disappointment — melt away a little pic.twitter.com/1eFf7IHjfw
— michelle huang (@michellehuang42) November 27, 2022
