More accurate than the Grim Reaper?Use AI to predict death, with an accuracy rate of up to 80%

"Would you like to let the AI tell you the bad news in advance?"

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The ancients once tried alchemy to break through the boundaries of life and seek the mystery of immortality.

Among the many life-related puzzles, death is always accompanied by the unknown. But in many science fiction movies, AI has been given the ultimate "God perspective", able to predict various events in everyone's life, even death. This concept may sound unrealistic, but looking at the current technology, we are not so far away from this "Black Mirror" future.

01

AI "Death Clock"

Scientists from the University of Copenhagen and Northeastern University have developed an AI model called life2vec, which has mastered the ability to predict death by learning from a variety of personal information of Danish nationals over a four-year period. The Danish government provided the main data for the study, including aspects such as personal education, occupation, income and health, and even details such as "someone took five electives in their sophomore year".

The basic operation of this machine learning model is to encode various events that occur in life into vector representations, and then learn fixed patterns from these events, and then make predictions about the future based on these sequence patterns, including predictions of multiple future events such as mortality, future income, educational achievement, health status, and personality changes.

The current data suggests that certain elements contribute to higher mortality rates, such as males, those diagnosed with mental health problems, high-tech occupations, and low incomes, and the researchers hope that future investigations will uncover more "hidden" causes of mortality.

life2vec

How accurate is life2vec?

When scientists used it to predict who would survive and who would die between 2016 and 2020, the model's predictions were 79% accurate compared to real data from 100,000 Danes aged 35-65.

However, due to ethical concerns, the researchers did not share their results with the participants who were still alive. At the same time, the researchers said that although this model has strong predictive power, it should not be used to predict the future of real people, but more to allow us to think more about the relationship between social infrastructure, policy and environment and human life.

02

What is your biological age? 

Although current technology is not yet able to accurately predict death, there are many technologies that can help us identify the risk of disease and aging, so that we can plan for the future.

For example, Tally Health, which has a group of star investors behind it, has launched consumer-oriented tests and products based on age science research. Scientific studies have shown that genes have no more than 10% of the effect on aging, and the other 90% is related to personal lifestyle.

Users can take TallyAge's™ age test at home, and by simply taking a sample from the cheek, Tally can obtain important information about the DNA methylation of the user's body, which can be used to infer the biological age of each person and recommend customized lifestyle recommendations to delay and reverse the aging process.

Tally Health

Tally Health has also launched two drugs to help slow down aging, improving mitochondrial health and improving metabolism in the body by reversing multiple processes such as slowed cell-to-cell communication, cellular senescence, suspension of macroautophagy, protein imbalance, and stem cell failure.

Last year, Tally Health closed a $10 million seed round led by Forerunner Ventures, with participation from celebrities such as Zac Efron, Pedro Pascal and Shonda Rhimes.

A similar solution to Tally is Elysium Health, whose Index age test can analyze the user's biological age, aging rate, and different ages of metabolic and immune systems through saliva samples, and also provide lifestyle recommendations for users to slow down the rate of aging.

Based on aging research, Elysium also provides users with a variety of drugs to delay aging in cellular, mental cognition, metabolism and immunity, and Elysium has completed $71.2 million in financing so far, with investors including General Catalyst and other institutions.

Products of Elysium Health

In terms of disease surveillance, the biggest player in this field is Human Longevity, which has been established for ten years, and one of the founders is Craig Venter, who has the title of "father of the human genome". Early signs of diseases such as Ozheimer's and heart disease, early treatment and reduction of disease risk, by providing comprehensive and in-depth health management, Human Longevity hopes to extend human life expectancy to 100 years old, this original intention has also won the support of investors, since its establishment, Human Longevity has completed a total of 340 million US dollars in financing, which is the largest financing in the field of longevity technology.

Human Longevity和创始人之一Craig Venter

In addition to physical diseases, one of the important signs of aging is cognitive decline, which not only affects the lives of individuals, but also creates serious social problems in aging countries, with 29% of the population over 65 years old in Japan and about 6 million people suffering from Alzheimer's disease, so it is important to understand the cognitive performance of this group.

UK-based Mind Foundry has partnered with Japanese insurer Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance to develop an artificial intelligence software to identify cognitive decline among older drivers. Behaviors such as erratic steering and sudden acceleration can identify patterns that indicate cognitive decline, suggesting that some drivers are too old to drive, and can build more customized insurance plans based on this data.

Cooperation between the two parties

03

Reverse the years of black technology

Of course, it's not enough to have information about your own aging, and many rich people have dreams of "immortality" and are willing to give everything they can to make it a reality, such as the tech giants of Silicon Valley.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman invested $180 million last year in Retro Biosciences, a biotechnology company that aims to extend human lifespan by a decade through cell reprogramming, autophagy and plasma therapy.

In animal experiments, there has been evidence that cell reprogramming can reverse the aging of multiple organs and prolong the lifespan of mice, scientists have also successfully made human skin 30 years younger through cell reprogramming, autophagy disorder is an important sign of cellular aging, there are currently research inventions for autophagy disorder anti-aging molecule, and has been shown to improve muscle health and osteoporosis, Retro is developing its own autophagy targeted molecule, which is scheduled to enter clinical research next year, and plasma therapy has shown that young mouse blood can reverse aging in old mice, it is this research result that inspired Altman to start exploring research in the field of longevity。

Altman said he invested all of his liquid assets in two companies, Retro and energy company Helion Energy, and that the $180 million he invested in Retro was one of the largest investments ever made in the longevity sector.

Retro Biosciences

Retro Biosciences is a new player in this space, and it has been preceded by a number of companies that have made significant advances in longevity technology, such as Unity Biotechnology, which both Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have invested in, focusing on treating age-related diseases. The main technology is to extend our healthy lifespan by eliminating or regulating aging cells and restoring aging and damaged tissues to a healthier state.

Unity has been shown to improve osteoarthritis and senile blindness-related diseases by killing senescent cells in mice by a third of their lifespans while improving kidney and heart function, and its UBX1325 has been shown to improve vision and retina in patients for up to 18 weeks in clinical trials. Unity Biotechnology went public on the NASDAQ in 2018.

Targeting senescent cells

VIOME, an RNA-based microbiome technology company, provides users with personalized food and nutrition recommendations for whole-body health, recommending precise doses of supplements, probiotics and prebiotics based on each person's biocharacteristics, and its customized precision nutrition program has been shown to reduce the severity of irritable bowel syndrome by 36% and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by 30%.

VIOME's belief is that as long as we take care of our gut health, the healthy functioning of cellular, immune, and metabolic systems will be guaranteed. Last year, Viome closed an $86.5 million Series C funding round co-led by Bold Capital Partners and Khosla Ventures, one of the largest deals in this space of the year.

VIOME

Switzerland-based Rejuveron is focused on developing new drugs to prevent and treat aging, prolonging life by addressing age-related diseases, and has developed RJx-01 for the treatment of muscular dystrophy in clinical studies, and has acquired a range of companies focused on healthy aging, such as Boost Neuroscience, which develops brain synaptic regeneration programs, and Endogena, which develops drugs that can repair tissues and organs Therapeutics。

Rejuveron 在去年完成了由Catalio Capital Management 和 Apeiron Investment Group领投的7500万美元融资。

Rejuveron

The FDA does not currently classify aging as a disease, which complicates the marketing of anti-aging drugs and solutions. But there's no denying that a deeper understanding of our existing lives, reversing the clocks of our body's infrastructure, and things like AI-enabled drug development and precision medicine are all declaring war on aging and death.

When the temptation of immortality collides with the immortality of Silicon Valley, longevity technology will continue to be hot.

But the more difficult question to answer is, if one day, AI can really accurately predict the time of your death, and black technology can also extend your lifespan by decades, what will you choose?