文章探讨了近期在社交媒体上流行的使用ChatGPT等AI工具来“显化”（manifest）理想生活的新趋势。用户通过向AI提供人生目标，让AI生成关于他们梦想生活的叙事，甚至制定实现这些目标的行动计划。作者亲身体验了这一过程，发现AI能生成引人入胜的梦想生活场景，但在提供具体行动建议时，尤其是在财务增长方面，有时会显得笼统或不切实际。此外，文章还提到了利用AI工具（如Runway、Veo 3）将用户真实照片融入AI生成的梦想生活视频的新玩法。尽管AI显化趋势日益增长，作者也表达了个人对此类工具的保留态度，认为想象力与现实生活中的努力同样重要。

✨ AI显化是一种利用ChatGPT等工具来描绘和规划理想生活的新兴趋势。用户通过输入个人目标，AI会生成关于梦想生活的生动故事，并可能提供实现目标的步骤建议。

📈 AI生成的梦想生活故事往往极具吸引力，能够引发用户的憧憬。例如，AI可以描绘出在意大利乡村别墅中度过的完美一天，包括细节化的场景和感官体验。

⚙️ 在将梦想转化为现实的行动计划方面，AI的表现可能存在局限性。虽然AI能提供一些初步的建议，如皮肤护理咨询，但在涉及财务增长等复杂目标时，其建议可能过于宽泛或难以具体执行。

🎬 新的AI应用还包括将用户真实照片与AI生成的梦想生活场景相结合，制作成视频，让用户更直观地“看到”自己的理想生活。

🤔 作者本人对AI显化持保留态度，认为虽然AI工具可能对某些人有帮助，但个人的想象力以及在现实生活中付出的努力同样是实现目标的关键因素。

People have been using ChatGPT and other AI tools to "manifest" their ideal lives.My colleague reported on this late last year, and I keep seeing the trend on TikTok still today.So I thought about it: Should I give in and join the AI manifesters and visualize my dream life?

It's a TikTok trend that's been going on for some time now — people using ChatGPT and other AI tools to "manifest" their dream lives.

So far, I've avoided it, but when one of my editors noticed it trending again, I had to at least consider it: Am I the type of person who'd manifest? And then use AI to show me what my ideal life would look like?

My colleague Ana Altchek noticed the trend back in September. "Users are sharing how AI has helped them enhance their traditional manifestation practices, such as visualizations, vision boards, positive affirmations, mantras, and rewiring negative beliefs," she reported at the time.

ChatGPT shows your dream life

I decided to investigate for myself, and I found that people essentially prompt AI to create a story about their dream life, based on their goals.

Let's say your goals were to be rich, have flawless skin, snag a hunky husband and two kids, and live in a villa in Italy where you garden tomatoes. Enter those goals — manifest them, if you will — and it would whip up a story for you.

Then, you could use it to create an action plan to actually get there.

I tried this out myself, asking ChatGPT to tell me a story about a day in my life in that Italian villa. I can't deny it delivered an appealing tale:

The sun slipped gently over the Tuscan hills, casting gold across the rolling vineyards and awakening Villa Rosabella, your sun-washed estate tucked among olive trees and cypress-lined roads. The sheets were linen, cool and crisp, and the smell of blooming jasmine drifted in through open French doors. You stretched, not a wrinkle on your face, your skin dewy and flawless, like you'd just walked out of a spa in Capri (because you had — last weekend).

But when I asked it to give me steps to achieve this dream life, things got a little wonky. Although it had some decent practical advice about how to achieve flawless skin ("get a consultation with a top dermatologist,") things got slightly more complicated when it came to the "becoming rich" part of the dream. It suggested things like, "Scale income to $500K+ annual revenue," which ... OK, sure?

To be fair, had I given it slightly more specific goals, it might have come up with a better plan. But I need to admit my bias here: I'm not really into the idea of manifesting. I'm happy for anyone who finds this useful, but it's just not for me.

A while back, I DM'ed some of the people I'd seen talking about this life hack on social media. A few of them told me they really did believe in the power of manifestation — and had clear life goals in mind. (I realized that these women were younger than I am, just starting out in their adult lives. Whereas I'm old enough that my only life goal is just to ride this thing out.)

Manifesting on video

There's also a new twist to the AI manifestations: video. The New York Times reported last week that people are using tools like Runway, Google's Veo 3, or a tool called Freepik to enter a real image of themselves that's then used to illustrate a real (fake) life. For example, I could upload a picture of myself, and then have AI create a video of me sauntering around my Tuscan tomato grove.

I wanted to give it a try, so I tried to use Freepik, which one of the women interviewed by the Times used. But there was a catch: Freepik required a paid account to create video— and there's no way I'm going to scale my income to $500,000 if I'm throwing it all away on AI tools, so I declined.

Personally, I don't think I want to see a video of myself in a dream life, anyway.

I don't think it would make me feel bad per se — or jealous of my dream AI self. And I'm not afraid that the AI version of me might come to life and murder and replace me. I simply do not wish to engage with such content. It just does not appeal to me at all.

Perhaps I lack a growth mindset — the desire to truly improve my life. Perhaps I should be more open to AI manifesting! But also, I am happy to just use my imagination, and tend the one scraggly cherry tomato plant in my yard.