9Comments
A questionnaire developed by XPRIZE and Deep Longevity claims to be able to accurately predict your psychological age by using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze your answers, which theoretically should fall close to your chronological age. The questionnaire is developed from a study published in Aging that used AI in an attempt to identify key hallmarks of psychological aging and the top risk factors that affect mortality.
While the questionnaire seems like a fun insight into whether you’re an old soul or a young gun at heart, there is an important scientific basis for an age-predicting AI. The newly developed technology represents the first AI aimed solely at using psychological aspects to predict age. The researchers hope it can contribute to understanding the role psychological clocks play in overall aging, as well as improving mental health and the feeling of youth.
"For the first time, AI can predict human psychological and subjective age and help identify the possible interventions that can be applied in order to help people feel and behave younger," said Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, founder and CLO of Deep Longevity and co-author of the study, in a statement.
The study presented two predictive technologies: PsychoAge, which predicts chronological age, and SubjAge, which predicts how old you perceive yourself to be. By using deep learning algorithms, the researchers wanted to identify what characteristics were most associated with age groups and whether they could be leveraged into creating an AI that can predict your age.
For SubjAge, the aim was to identify what personality traits could help you "feel younger" and whether people’s perception of age could affect their mortality – with previous studies linking perception of age to a number of health factors, such a predictor could be important to improving overall wellbeing.
"One's mindset may determine the decisions that ultimately affect their overall health. By identifying the psychosocial variables that underpin particular mindsets and behaviors, deep psychological clocks can serve as a powerful tool in promoting personal improvement, mental health, wellness, and a wide range of other health and therapeutic applications," continued Zhavoronkov.
You can take the quiz here and find out how your psyche is faring against the passage of time.
Both AI were developed using the results of a large training set (over 7,000 participants) of varying age groups to analyze what personality traits and question answers were most likely to be seen at each. The results showed a range of interesting correlations involving psychological aging and mortality, with some psychological beliefs (such as "living for today") strongly correlated with a high mortality risk. Interestingly, this had a stronger correlation with mortality than some self-reported health defects, such as shortness of breath, although the authors acknowledge that the responses may not have been detailed enough.
So, maybe "YOLO" was a bad idea to be spouting after all.
They also discovered that people with a higher SubjAge had higher all-cause mortality risk, and those with 5 years above their actual age had a more than two-fold increase in mortality risk compared to a person with normal age perception.
The researchers now hope that the tools can be used to help users' overall mental and physical health by drawing attention to the ongoing psychological aging all humans go through.
"These tools and methods could be applied in a wide range of research areas, including psychiatry, longevity, psychology, and psychophysiology for the greater good of society." write the authors.
