Scientists have built a calculator that predicts when a person will die.
The algorithm uses information about a person’s health, education, job, income, addresses and working patterns to establish how long they will live and when they pass away.
It has been constructed by scientists in Denmark and the United States and is said to be accurate 79 per cent of the time – far more successful than the “actuarial life tables” used by insurers that have an accuracy rate of 55.5 per cent.
Sune Lehmann Jorgensen, from the Technical University of Denmark, said: “We used the model to address to what extent can we predict events in your future based on conditions and events in your past.”
However, further studies are needed before the algorithm can assess an “individual’s risk of contracting a disease”.
