I wish the Web had a life-expectancy server. You would call up a Web form that asks for a batch of demographic and lifestyle information, and it would tell you in statistical terms how much longer you have to live. ("At the rate you're going, you have 17.3 plus or minus 3.1 years left.") It could even offer a commentary on how much the outcome would change if you gave up smoking, moved to the country, carried a gun, improved your relationships, and so on.
You could have a continual update delivered to the bottom of your computer screen, with the seconds ticking off your life expectancy. The clock might tick at different rates, or it might even tick backward as updated predictive information becomes available.
- Phil Agre (pagre@weber.ucsd.edu) teaches communications at the University of California, San Diego.
