Doom Calculator: AI Algorithm Predicts Death Sparks Ethical Debate

“life2vec,” a revolutionary artificial intelligence algorithm(AI), functions in a manner that is analogous to that of ChatGPT, although it does not involve direct user involvement. The pioneering effort was published in the online journal Nature Computational Science by the researchers, who were from both Denmark and the United States.

Life2vec conducted an analysis of data collected from more than six million people in Denmark. The data covered a wide range of topics, including age, health, education, employment, income, and life events. United States of America Today reports that the Danish government provided this extensive dataset, which served as the foundation for the training of the artificial intelligence.

How Does the Doom Calculator Work?

During its training, Life2vec was taught to process information about the lives of individuals that was supplied in the form of sentences. For instance, it picked up information from phrases like “In September 2012, Francisco received 20,000 Danish kroner as a guard at a castle in Elsinore” in addition to “During her third year at secondary boarding school, Hermione followed five elective classes.” In the course of its development, the artificial intelligence acquired the capability to create “individual human life trajectories.”

In a metaphorical manner, the lead author, Sune Lehmann, who is a professor of networks and complexity science at the Technical University of Denmark, referred to human life as a “giant long sentence,” which encompasses a multitude of occurrences.

In the year 2020, the artificial intelligence was able to correctly identify persons who had gone away, achieving an impressively high predicted accuracy of 78%. The Science Times reports that none of the people who participated in the study were given any information regarding the dates on which they were expected to pass away.

The presence of mental health disorders, male gender, and skilled professions were considered to be factors that were connected with earlier deaths. On the other hand, researchers found a correlation between longer lifespans and better incomes and leadership responsibilities in the workplace. This artificial intelligence shown diversity in its ability to forecast a variety of elements, ranging from personalities to decisions on overseas relocations.

A Breakthrough Tech But Too Risky: AI Algorithm Predicts Death Sparks

Even while it has the potential to be useful, the dread calculator is not yet ready for public usage, and the data linked with it is kept confidential in order to protect people’s privacy. In order to prioritize the protection of individual privacy, the researchers are actively researching ways to communicate the results in a more accessible manner.

Collaborator Tina Eliassi-Rad, who is a professor of computer science at Northeastern University in Boston, advised against the use of technologies such as life2vec to forecast individual outcomes. She emphasized the usefulness of these tools in monitoring society trends rather than predicting individual destinies, recognizing that “real people have hearts and minds.”

Sune Lehmann pointed out that the artificial intelligence model “should not be used by an insurance company, because the whole idea of insurance is that, by sharing the lack of knowledge of who is going to be the unlucky person struck by some incident, or death, or losing your backpack, we can kind of share this this burden,” according to a statement from The Sun.

Additionally, he voiced his concerns regarding the possibility that huge technology businesses that possess vast amounts of data are already employing comparable algorithms in order to devise predictions regarding individuals.

When it comes to predicting death, artificial intelligence has significant ethical consequences. Art Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the New York University Langone Medical Center, thinks that customers will want their projected data. He also anticipates that there will be issues and conflicts around the access of third parties to sensitive confidential information.

Despite the fact that Caplan acknowledges the possible advantages of reducing deaths, he expresses concern regarding the influence that the algorithm will have on removing life’s unknowns, which may not necessarily be advantageous.