我的iPhone屏幕上是这样显示的：Death Clock——一款基于你的医疗习惯和生活方式预测预期寿命的AI长寿应用——生成了一张微笑的死神图片，来庆祝我的“大限之日”。九月的一个早晨，他就那样出现了，看起来对这一揭晓格外兴奋，躺在一个甜甜圈形状的充气泳池里，比着V字手势，头顶上是一个巨大的数字：74。
So says my iPhone screen, where Death Clock, an AI-powered longevity app that predicts life expectancy based on your medical habits and lifestyle, has produced an image of a smiling grim reaper to celebrate my expiration date. There he was one September morning, looking especially thrilled about the reveal, gesturing with a peace sign as he reclined in a doughnut-shaped pool inflatable under that giant number: 74.
我从不讨厌变老，但我想，这比我期望的离世年龄要年轻。过去四年里——在这四年间，我的祖母和姑妈在18个月内相继离世——我越来越清楚地意识到自己的日子是多么有限。自从一月份年满40岁，我也每天感受到衰老的提醒：背部、脖子和臀部轮流出现莫名其妙的疼痛。精神上，我感觉自己还年轻；身体上，却在大声抗议。衰老是自然规律，但我隐隐觉得自己能争取更多时间。
I have never resented getting older, but I suppose that’s younger than I’d like to be when my time is up. In the last four years—years that brought the passing of my grandmother and aunt within 18 months—I’ve become hyperaware of how finite my days are. Since turning 40 in January, I’ve also experienced daily reminders of aging: inexplicable pains that rotate between my back, neck, and hips. Spiritually, I feel young; physically, my body screams otherwise. Aging is natural, but I had a creeping suspicion I could buy myself more time.
我们对延长寿命的集体痴迷催生了一个价值数万亿美元的长寿产业，而布莱恩·约翰逊这类自封的“先知”更是为其推波助澜。气候变化和AI末日论等威胁似乎只会加剧存在性恐惧，即便大语言模型承诺开启个性化医疗的新时代，以解决任何健康问题。按照这种思路，只要你追踪足够多的数据，算法就能帮助你“破解”自己的死亡。
Our collective obsession with life extension has given rise to a multitrillion-dollar longevity industry, bolstered by wannabe prophets like Bryan Johnson. Threats like climate change and AI doomerism only seem to have intensified existential fears, even as LLMs promise a new era of personalized medicine to address any health issue. Track enough pieces of data, the thinking goes, and algorithms can help you hack your own demise.
这一切让我找到了Death Clock，这是一款2024年推出的应用，旨在追踪用户的健康习惯，试图延长他们的寿命。今年2月，该公司宣布了一项新功能，允许你订购生物标志物检测套餐。订阅费为69美元，你可以获得一套基础血液检测，测量胆固醇、血糖、炎症、维生素D以及血液和器官健康等指标。此外还有九项额外检测——评估从激素、微量营养素到甲状腺的各项指标——总共花费780美元。我选择了常规血液检测，并加购了“压力”检测（29美元）。也许一些新的洞察能帮我应对压力。
All of which led me to Death Clock, an app launched in 2024 aimed at tracking users’ health habits in an attempt to prolong their lives. In February, the company announced a new feature that lets you order biomarker panels. For a $69 subscription, you can get a basic blood panel that measures things like cholesterol, blood sugars, inflammation, vitamin D, and blood and organ health. There are also nine additional tests—assessing everything from hormones and micronutrients to your thyroid—that, altogether, cost $780. I opted for the routine blood panel and added the “stress” test ($29). Maybe some new insight could help me get a handle on it.
为了不沦为又一个病态的倒计时噱头，Death Clock表示，它用1200项长寿研究、人寿保险公司的精算数据以及预期寿命表来训练其人工智能。根据你的检测结果，其算法会生成一份详细的预防计划，旨在帮助你延长余下的时间。
In an attempt to be more than another morbid countdown gimmick, Death Clock says it’s trained its AI on 1,200 longevity studies, actuarial data from life insurance companies, and life expectancy tables. Based on your results, its algorithms create a detailed prevention plan intended to help extend the time you have left.
坦白说，我怀疑这真能带来什么有意义的东西。我也承认，我有点害怕自己会了解到不想知道的事情——在这个已经带来不少意外麻烦的一年里，这个事实可能会瓦解我仅存的一点理智。
Frankly, I was skeptical that anything meaningful would actually come from this. I was also, I can admit, a little fearful that I’d learn something I didn’t want to, a fact that might dissolve the little sanity I had left in a year that had already brought its share of unexpected problems.
填写完初始健康问卷后，一条通知嗡嗡响起，预告了我的死亡。通知说，我可能死于三种方式：心血管疾病、睡眠障碍或癌症（未具体说明哪种类型）。这意味着，根据这款应用，我已经“完成”了我在这个凡尘俗世超过一半的寿命。几天后，当我提到我的家族有轻度糖尿病史时，应用将我预计的死亡年龄从74岁更新为73岁。就这样，我失去了一年。
After filling out an initial health questionnaire, a notification buzzed, forewarning my demise. There are three ways I will likely perish, it said: cardiovascular disease, a sleep disorder, or cancer (it doesn’t specify which type). This means, according to the app, I have already “completed” more than half of my existence on this mortal plane. A few days later, when I noted that my family has a mild history of diabetes, the app updated my age of death from 74 to 73. And just like that, I lost a year.
我知道自己活不到100岁；我们家族的人一般都在80岁出头就去世了。但有没有可能通过一个高度个性化的计划，把我的寿命延长10年甚至15年？“你有两条路，”应用程序发来的一条消息写道，“我们来帮你实现较长的那条。”我预约了Quest Diagnostics——该公司合作的两家实验室之一——并心甘情愿地把自己的血液交给了Death Clock。
I know I won’t live to be 100; people in my family generally croak in their early eighties. But was it possible to extend my lifespan by 10, even 15 years, with a hyperpersonalized plan? “You have two paths,” a message from the app exclaimed. “We are here to help you achieve the longer one.”
“那是徒劳的差事，”Death Clock首席执行官布伦特·弗兰森一天下午对我说。他说，像约翰逊这样的倡导者——他的口号“不要死”读起来更像一句被耐克否决的广告语，而不是以健康为导向的肯定语——“在你有东西要卖的时候，必须非常小心，不要推断什么永生。那是个危险的位置。现实是，我们都会死。问题只是什么时候。”在Zoom上，我满脑子想的都是弗兰森想卖给我什么。
I made an appointment with Quest Diagnostics, one of the two labs the company has partnered with, and willingly gave Death Clock my blood. “That’s a fool errand,” Death Clock CEO Brent Franson tells me one afternoon. He says advocates like Johnson—whose mantra “Don’t Die” reads more like a rejected Nike slogan than a wellness-oriented affirmation—“have to be really careful about inferring immortality when you have something to sell. That’s a dangerous place to be. The reality is we’re all going to die. It’s a question of when.”
长寿市场预计到2030年将达到8万亿美元，这意味着医疗保健的未来可能较少由传统治疗塑造，而更多由个性化的人工智能健康服务塑造。通过Doctronic——一个符合HIPAA（美国健康保险流通与责任法案）规定、运作方式如同个人AI医生的平台——人们无需看真人医生就能续开处方；而Superpower和Lifeforce（与Death Clock类似）等应用程序则提供会员制健康洞察和经临床医生审核的建议。
Over Zoom, all I can think about is what Franson is trying to sell me. The longevity market is projected to reach $8 trillion by 2030, meaning the future of health care may be shaped less by traditional treatment and more by personalized AI health services.
Twin Health声称可以创建一个人体新陈代谢的AI复制品——不管那是什么意思。所有这些都旨在帮助我们活得稍微久一点，尽管具体如何实现以及代价是什么并不清楚。
With Doctronic, a HIPAA-compliant platform that works like a personal AI doctor, people can refill prescriptions without the need to see a human physician, while apps like Superpower and Lifeforce (similar to Death Clock) offer membership-based health insights and clinician-reviewed recommendations. Twin Health purports to create an AI replica, whatever that means, of a person’s metabolism.
加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校统计学和应用概率学教授迈克·卢德科夫斯基的研究重点是寿命分析。他表示，像“死亡时钟”这样的死亡意识平台“兜售一种错觉，即个体寿命是一个可以被破解的线性过程”。2024年《衰老细胞》杂志的一项研究同样指出，衰老时钟不应被视为衡量一个人整体生理年龄的标准。“归根结底，引发死亡的个体层面诱因本质上是随机的，永远无法真正预测，”卢德科夫斯基说。
All of it is meant to help us live a little longer, though it’s unclear exactly how and at what cost. Mike Ludkovski, a professor of statistics and applied probability at UC Santa Barbara whose research focuses on longevity analysis, says mortality awareness platforms like Death Clock “sell the illusion that individual lifespan is a linear process” that can be hacked. A 2024 Aging Cell study likewise suggested that an aging clock shouldn’t be treated as a measure of someone’s overall biological age. “Ultimately, individual-level triggers precipitating death are inherently random and will never be truly forecastable,” Ludkovski says.
我问弗兰森，我们是真的变得更健康了，还是只是对不健康越来越焦虑？“我认为两者都有，”他说。“人们对自我优化有一种非常不健康的执念——追踪一切，试图控制一切。”死亡时钟难道不也在一定程度上难辞其咎吗？
I ask Franson if we’re actually getting healthier or just growing more anxious about being unhealthy. “I think both,” he says. “There’s a very unhealthy obsession with self-optimization—tracking everything, trying to control everything.”Wasn’t Death Clock, in part, also guilty of that?
根据我的检测结果，这款应用不断给我推送更多任务：增加维生素D3摄入量！预约DEXA扫描检查骨密度！与专家讨论前列腺特异性抗原筛查！尽管弗兰森声称他希望“死亡时钟”最终能取代初级保健医生，但这款应用却一直提示我与医生讨论我的检测结果。
Based on my results, the app kept feeding me more tasks. Increase my vitamin D3! Schedule a DEXA scan for bone density! Discuss a prostate-specific antigen screening with a specialist!
最终，我开始意识到，追踪健康数据能做的其实很有限。《你的第二个黄金期：变老很糟糕，还是我们不擅长变老？》一书的作者格蕾琴·特里-莱昂纳德说，人们有一种信念：能够衡量某件事，就意味着它也能被管理。她说，死亡并非如此，“所以测量开始服务于另一种需求：减少恐惧的需求。”特里-莱昂纳德还是“深度人性领导力中心”的联合创始人，该中心是一家研究人工智能对大脑健康影响的独立研究机构。
Despite Franson’s claim that he wants Death Clock to eventually be a replacement for primary care physicians, the app kept nudging me to discuss my results with a doctor. Ultimately, I started to realize, tracking health data can only do so much. There is a belief, says Gretchen Terry-Leonard, author of Your Second Prime: Does Aging Suck, or Do We Suck at Aging?, that being able to measure something means it can also be managed. Death doesn’t work that way, she says, “so the measuring starts to serve a different need: the need to feel less afraid.”Terry-Leonard is also the cofounder of the Center for Deeply Human Leadership, an independent research institute studying AI’s effect on brain health.
她对面向消费者的长寿应用能否凭自身带来积极的行为改变持怀疑态度。“事实无法改变想法，”她说。人们知道某些活动不健康，但还是照做。
She’s skeptical that consumer-facing longevity apps can lead to positive behavioral shifts on their own. “Facts don’t change minds,” she says. People understand that certain activities are unhealthy, but they do them anyway.
将死亡置于视野之中是人类最古老的实践之一，关键似乎在于一个人是否感觉拥有个人能动性，从而能在生活中做出必要的调整。研究死亡念头如何塑造健康选择的学者发现，当人们同时拥有行动的自信和资源时，会转向更健康的行为，但并非人人都具备这些条件。特里-伦纳德告诉我：“如果没有这些，焦虑往往会转向维护我们对自己的感受，而非我们的健康。”
Keeping death in view is one of the oldest practices we have, and what seems to matter is whether a person feels they have the personal agency to make the necessary adjustments in their life. Researchers who study how thoughts of death shape health choices find that people move toward healthier behavior when they also have the confidence and resources to act, which not everyone does. “And without those,” Terry-Leonard tells me, “the anxiety tends to go into protecting how we feel about ourselves rather than into our health.”
在撰写著作的研究过程中，特里-伦纳德发现，对衰老持更积极态度的老年人，平均比持消极看法的人多活七年半。一款带有死亡倒计时的应用程序“能悄无声息地教会我们衰老即损耗”，阻碍长寿而非促进长寿。
While researching her book, Terry-Leonard found that older adults with more positive attitudes about aging lived an average of seven and a half years longer than those with negative outlooks. An app with a death countdown “can quietly teach us that aging is loss,” hindering longevity rather than promoting it.
在我使用“死亡时钟”的一个月里，这是我无法完全摆脱的事实。我成了自己身体机能的一丝不苟的管家，以会计师在报税截止日期前疯狂核算数字般的干劲，记录“日常习惯”。仅在一天内，我就通过标记完成了至少30分钟力量训练、滴酒未沾、刷牙并使用牙线、保持规律作息、蒸桑拿、饮水超过八杯，为寿命增加了5.8年。但即使我在努力改善我的死亡日期，时钟始终在那里，倒计时不止。它像一只信天翁，朝单一、统一的方向移动：滴答，滴答，滴答。时间成了我被迫优化的负担。
In the month that I used Death Clock, this was the fact I couldn’t completely escape. I became a meticulous steward of my bodily functions, logging “daily habits” with the verve of an accountant manically calculating numbers just before tax deadline. In a single day I added 5.8 years to my life by earmarking that I’d completed at least 30 minutes of strength training, abstained from alcohol, brushed and flossed my teeth, gotten consistent sleep, spent time in the sauna, and drank more than eight glasses of water. But even as I labored to improve my death date, the clock was always there, counting down. It was an albatross that moved in a single, uniform direction: tick, tick, tick. Time became a burden I was being forced to optimize.
人们执着于他们试图逃避的事物，这合情合理。对控制的渴望让人上瘾。但“死亡时钟”非但没有抚平我对未知世界的焦虑和疑问，反而似乎放大了它们。
It makes sense that people are preoccupied with the very thing they are trying to escape. The need for control is addictive. But instead of assuaging my anxieties and questions about the great beyond, Death Clock only seemed to amplify them.
当我想要构建的生活画面在我脑海中愈发清晰，那种生活已以令人愉悦的意外方式展开，我意识到，这与我如何让事情发生关系不大，而与我希望与谁共同经历这些事情关系重大。生活不是关于增加更多时间，而是关于在我们能够的时候让时间变得有意义。我在手机上关闭了Death Clock的通知，并给一位朋友发了条短信：“我们7点见面。”请告诉我们你对这篇文章的看法。向mail@wired.com投稿致编辑信。
As the image of the life I want to build sharpens in my mind, a life that has already unfolded in deliciously unforeseen ways, I realize it has less to do with how I will make things happen and has everything to do with who I want them to happen with. Life isn’t about adding more time, but making it count when we can. I silenced Death Clock’s notifications on my phone and texted a friend: “Let’s meet at 7.”Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com.