Artificial intelligence creates ‘extremely accurate’ death calculator

American scientists have created a death calculator. Using artificial intelligence, the program calculates the date of death with an accuracy of up to 80 percent. The model focuses on such indicators as income, standard of living, profession and illness.

Most people are hesitant to find out when they might die, but a death calculator has recently been developed that, using artificial intelligence, can predict when a person will cease to exist with frighteningly accurate accuracy.

“We’re using the technology behind ChatGPT to analyze people’s lives, thinking of each person as a sequence of events that happen to them,” lead study author Sun Lehmann tells The New York Post.

In the report, the authors present an algorithm known as “life2vec” that uses selected details of a person’s life – including income, occupation, location and medical history – to determine life expectancy with 78 percent accuracy.

“We take advantage of the fact that in a certain sense human lives are similar to language,” explains Lehmann, “just as words follow each other in sentences, events follow each other in human lives.”

Slightly different from ChatGPT, life2vec can calculate the life outcomes of a man or woman by taking a close look at their past.

“This model can predict almost anything,” says Sun Lehmann, noting that the research team also used specialized software to predict people’s personalities and international moving decisions.

“We predicted death because it’s something people have been working on for years,” the researcher adds, “so we had a good idea of ​​what was possible.”

The team studied a diverse sample of 6 million Danes, who varied in gender and age, between 2008 and 2020. The analysts used life2vec to find out which subjects were likely to live at least four years after January 1, 2016.

The researchers provided the AI ​​with specific information about each study participant using simple language, such as: “In September 2012, Francisco received 20 thousand Danish kroner as a guard at the castle in Elsinore” or “During her third year at boarding high school, Hermione attended five extracurricular activities.”

They then assigned different numerical values ​​to each piece of data. There, the forearm fracture is designated as S52; working in a tobacco shop as IND4726.

Using the information provided, the life2vec calculator almost accurately predicted who will die by 2020 more than 3/4 of the time.

According to the study, some of the factors that may contribute to earlier death include being male, having a mental health diagnosis or being in a skilled profession. Earning a higher income or holding a leadership position were associated with living longer.

However, Lehmann emphasizes in an interview with an American publication that not a single participant in the study was given predictions about his death.

“It would be very irresponsible,” the researcher stresses, noting that the team hopes to eventually share more details about their findings in a way that protects the privacy of those involved in the study.

The bot is currently not available to the general public. And once it’s widely adopted—if it ever happens—the expert says AI likely won’t be used to inform specific individuals in cases such as writing insurance policies or making hiring decisions.

“Predictions are not used for anything,” the scientist insists, “the point of life2vec is to understand what is possible – and what is impossible – to predict.”