AI May Hold the Key to Stopping Suicide

NBC:

Every day in the United States about 120 people commit suicide. At nearly 45,000 suicides annually, it’s the 10th-leading cause of death in the U.S. and its rate is increasing year by year, national data shows. Healthcare providers have ways to prevent a suicide attempt, but often they don’t know in advance who needs the intervention most.

“We’ve been doing this for 50 years, and our ability is still at chance level,” says Jessica Ribeiro, a psychologist and researcher at Florida State University.

…

So far the results are promising. Using AI, Ribeiro and her colleagues were able to predict whether someone would attempt suicide within the next two years at about 80 percent accuracy, and within the next week at 92 percent accuracy. Their findings were recently reported in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

Read the whole story: NBC