Artificial intelligence has taken a sinister turn with the development of Life2vec, an AI death calculator that has been demonstrated to be uncannily accurate in predicting the end of lives.
To study human lives, Life2vec uses the same technology as ChatGPT, namely transformer models, which depict each individual as a series of events. Developed with the help of 6 million Danes, the results were published in Nature under the title of the article “Using Sequences of Life-Events to Predict Human Lives.”
Predictions are based on many characteristics, including income, career, and medical records, as lead author Sune Lehmann stated. To ascertain if a person had passed away by 2020, the technology examines their life narrative from 2008 to 2016, looking for patterns and applying an algorithm.
Predictions made by the Life2vec model were 78% accurate. Life expectancy was shown to be longer for those with higher incomes and those in leadership positions, and shorter for those with risky lifestyle choices like smoking. A person’s mental health and exercise routine were among the lifestyle factors taken into account by the application.
A forearm break would be coded as S52, postpartum hemorrhage as 072, and a computer systems technician’s job as POS3513, according to the research.
Among a sample of Danes between the ages of 35 and 65 who are currently undergoing Life2vec testing, 50% have already died. The fact that the technology is still inaccessible to the general public raises concerns regarding the moral and psychological effects of predictive technologies like this one.
