Death is uncertain, and no living being, apart from single-celled organisms, is immortal. Many of us are curious to find out the exact day of our deaths.
And this curiosity is not new. For centuries, human beings have used actuarial tables to figure out how long they’re likely to live. But now, artificial intelligence (AI) has taken up this task.
Meet ‘Death Clock’: An AI-powered app
“Death Clock,” an AI-powered longevity app, has become a hit. However, only paid users can avail of its services.
Citing data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, a report by Bloomberg on Saturday (Nov. 30) said that Death Clock has been downloaded some 125,000 times since its launch in July. The app has been developed by Brent Franson.
The AI used here was trained on a dataset of more than 1,200 life expectancy studies with some 53 million participants, Bloomberg reported.
How does Death Clock work?
Death Clock uses information about diet, exercise, stress levels, and sleep to predict a likely date of death. Speaking to Bloomberg, Franson said the results have been a “pretty significant” improvement on the standard lifetable expectations.
The app displays a “fond farewell” death-day card featuring the Grim Reaper. Death Clock ranks high in the Health and Fitness category of apps. But the technology potentially has a wider range of uses.
People interested in downloading the app have to pay $40 per year.
Death Clock suggests lifestyle changes that can hold mortality at bay – along with a second-by-second countdown of estimated time remaining.
“There’s probably not a more important date in your life than the day that you’re going to die,” Franson told Bloomberg.
(With inputs from agencies)