From ancient oracles to astrological predictions read in free newspapers when leaving the metro, Man has never stopped trying to unravel the mystery of his finitude. The developers of the Death Clock application, available on Android and iOS, seem to have found the solution: thanks to it and its features based on artificial intelligence, you will be able to calculate the exact moment of our last breath. A dubious promise that plays on our persistent desire to master the unpredictable, even if it means entrusting our deepest anxieties to algorithms.
Algorithmic death, a new business model
The application has enjoyed undeniable commercial success with 125,000 downloads since July 2023, and is close to 5 stars on both Android and iOS. Free to download, on its App Store page, we can nevertheless read that “ some features require a paid subscription “. Yes, knowing the day of your death obviously has a price, and no less than 10 options or in-app purchases are available, ranging from 9.99 euros to 99.9 euros (!), without these being clearly explained.
Its operation is based on the analysis of personal data : eating habits, physical activity, sleep quality and stress level. The model, trained on a corpus of 1,200 studies concerning life expectancy and compiling data from 53 million participants, then establishes a macabre countdown to the presumed day of death.
Bret Franson, the designer of the application, justifies this approach by a questionable assertion to say the least : « There is probably no more important date in your life than the day you are going to die ».
A morbid prediction tool for insurers?
Besides its sensationalist aspect, Death Clock claims to serve a more noble objective: to encourage its users to improve their lifestyle to postpone the fateful deadline. Its creators even aim to revolutionize the insurance sector and retirement planning by offering more personalized calculations than current averages.
Obviously, many factors cannot be considered and integrated into the application’s calculations, which ignores variables that are nevertheless decisive. What about life’s accidents, pandemics, or natural disasters? Factors related to mental health and well-being like social isolation, stress and anxiety?
Death Clock perfectly illustrates the excesses of contemporary “technological solutionism”where every human concern becomes a pretext for a paid service. If the stated objective of encouraging better lifestyle habits is, in appearance, laudable, the method chosen – monetize the fear of death – is much less so.
- Death Clock claims to predict your date of death via in-app AI.
- The application analyzes your personal data and then establishes a countdown.
- Free to download, it is however available in several versions with paid subscriptions.
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