A new computer system can predict which death row prisoners will live and which will be executed - with chilling accuracy. The US executes only a small proportion of the people it sentences to death; 53 of 3228 in 2006, and until now, no clear patterns were evident to researchers about which inmates end up paying with their lives and which do not. By inputting data about the fates of 1000 death row inmates from 1973 through 2002, criminologists and computer scientists were able to train an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict the fates of an additional 300 inmates with greater than 90% accuracy. From this experiment, they learned that gender was the most significant factor linked to executions, as women are rarely executed. Race, although apparently a huge factor in death sentence rates, is not an important factor when it comes to actual executions. The most significant factor is educational level, particularly the number of years spent in high school. According to an article in New Scientist, "This finding confirms that being executed is not about what you've done, but more about your ability to defend yourself."
I'm thinking that I would not want to be on death row surrounded by college graduates. Researchers have also used ANNs to predict the likelihood that paroled juveniles will reoffend and to identify students most likely to drop out of college. I'm also thinking that predicting success would certainly be a more cheerful task for researchers. Wouldn't it be great to know whether or not you are likely to succeed in your chosen career path before you invest your energy, your heart, and your money? Would dire predictions of an ANN be enough to stop some people from pursuing their dreams? What effect would knowing the outcome have on the journey?
