The Oracle on Your Wrist

We built AI to improve our lives. It might soon predict our demise.

I’ve been fortunate enough to publish two successful novels -- The Shroud Conspiracy and The Second Coming. In the series, a genius protagonist invents a watch that accurately estimates his probable date of death down to the month it will occur. It’s a provocative plot device, but not as far-fetched as it once seemed when I wrote the books several years ago.

In both books, the watch sparks an existential awareness and a constant reminder of how little time remains for the main character to become the man he was meant to be. Readers often ask me if such a device could really exist. My answer? It already does, just without the ominous voice telling you to get your affairs in order.

I’d argue we’re already more than halfway there. The technology isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s strapped to your wrist and feeding data into algorithms at the moment. And while it may not blink an expiration date on your screen yet, the machinery of mortality prediction is already spinning, quietly, clinically, and without your full awareness.

From Wellness to Warning

There’s a strange kind of irony in the age of Artificial Intelligence: we’re building machines to improve our lives, but they might soon also tell us when we’ll die.

Not in a

palm-reading, tarot-card kind of way. I mean it literally, with unprecedentedly accurate probability distributions. They are based on your biometrics, diet, DNA, sleep habits, and how often you skip a workout.

Think I’m being dramatic? Your Apple Watch already collects more than enough data points to make an educated guess about your life expectancy: resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), blood oxygen levels, VO₂ max, irregular heartbeats, sleep cycles, and whether you stood up once an hour as instructed.

Now add in your family medical history, marriage status, your genome (which you mailed off to 23andMe for a discount), your Uber Eats history, your Google search behavior, and even the tone of your voice during phone calls. Feed all that into a massive language model trained on hundreds of millions of health records, insurance tables, clinical trial data, death certificates, and the life stories of people just like you. What do you get?

A clock. Not one that ticks, but one that whispers.

It won’t shout, “Barring an accident, you’ll die on July 29, 2042, right after brunch.” It’ll say, “Based on current indicators, you have an 88% chance of dying between the ages of 78 and 80. Heart disease is your likeliest exit ramp.”

AI doesn’t need a crystal ball. It requires you, or more precisely, the raw data that is you. Many of us have been feeding it this for years.

The Price of Knowing

The allure of Big Tech is that these features are designed for your wellness. You’re not being tracked, you’re being “empowered.” You’re not being analyzed, you’re “taking charge of your health.” All true. But in reality, your wearables are also an early warning system that feeds machine learning models, which will soon out-predict your doctor. And possibly outlive you.

The algorithms don’t know your name. They don’t care if you’re funny, kind, or deeply loved. They see your resting heart rate rising, your HRV dropping, and that you haven’t closed your “Move, Exercise, and Stand” rings in three weeks. And that means something to them, even if it doesn’t yet to you.

Warning: Sharing this data could eventually be used not only for your benefit but also against your interests.

• Insurers may hike your premiums.

• Employers may quietly pass on hiring you.

• Banks could tighten your credit access because you’re a short-term bet.

All while you're still thinking your smartwatch is just nudging you to breathe well.

We are entering the era of the Digital Oracle, one that doesn't predict your future through stars but analyzes your sleep score, sodium intake, and genome sequence. Like the oracles of old, it doesn’t care if you want to know your fate; it already knows it.

You are the Dataset

And here’s the kicker: even if you don’t provide all that personal data, the model will still make guesses based on people like you. You ultimately become a statistical shadow of your demographic, behavioral, and genetic group. In the end, your individuality won’t save you from the math.

This isn’t meant to fearmonger. It’s the power of AI. And it's coming whether you click “Agree” or not.

So the question isn’t whether AI can predict your day of reckoning, but whether you’ll be allowed to live your life without being defined by it.

And that future? It might already be stored in a server farm, quietly working in the background, just behind your morning step count.