3 replies to this topic

[osris]

Life expectancy ranges per decade from 1900 according to ChatGPT:

 

Born in the 1900s: Around 31 to 49 years

Born in the 1910s: Around 39 to 55 years

Born in the 1920s: Around 46 to 63 years

Born in the 1930s: Around 59 to 66 years

Born in the 1940s: Around 60 to 68 years

Born in the 1950s: Around 65 to 71 years

Born in the 1960s: Around 67 to 73 years

Born in the 1970s: Around 69 to 76 years

Born in the 1980s: Around 70 to 77 years

Born in the 1990s: Around 72 to 79 years

Born in the 2000s: Around 74 to 80 years

 

The projections from the 1930s onwards seem inaccurate, given that we have people born in the 1930 living beyond 85 (William Shatner etc).

 

So here are my best guesses of the life expectancy from 1930 onwards:

 

Born in the 1930s: Around 88 to 90 years

Born in the 1940s: Around 90 to 92 years

Born in the 1950s: Around 92 to 94 years

Born in the 1960s: Around 94 to 96 years

Born in the 1970s: Around 96 to 98 years

Born in the 1980s: Around 98 to 100 years

Born in the 1990s: Around 100 to 102 years

Born in the 2000s: Around 102 to 104 years

 

[QuestforLife]

What you need to do is adjust these values to remove the effect of infant mortality. For example, in primitive societies (or even in early industrial societies before the introduction of sanitation, etc.) the chance of living past about 8yo was only about 50% (read this somewhere, feel free to get a better estimate)

 

It is probably reasonable to apply this to 1900.  

 

i.e., 0.5*(4+X) =(31+49)*0.5=40yo (average of death in childhood and death in adulthood given you survive childhood = the average of your life expectancy figures)

therefore X=76yo. 

 

So, if we accept 50% child mortality at 4 years old (picked this as it is halfway between birth and 8)) and that overall average life expectancy in 1900 was 40, then life expectancy given you didn't die as a child is 76yo.

 

Now this makes lie expectancy improvements since 1900 much less impressive and projections of 100 years+ somewhat laughable. In fact, you could say that outside of reducing child mortality, there have been almost ZERO improvements since 1900.

 

Go tell ChatGPT to get child mortality figures for each of your years and remove these as I have done. 

 

[Rocket]

I would say chatgpt isn't a reliable source

[osris]

ChatGPT is usually an accurate source of information. It might be that regarding making predictions it needs some tweaking.