Some have suggested that neural networks could be applied to people to indicate how likely they are to develop a disease or even become criminals. The idea is to add a child’s personal characteristics, demographics, and genealogy into a neural network and the neural network will classify if that youngster is at risk for a disease or for aberrant behavior. For this assignment, choose either susceptibility to disease or to criminal behavior.
Make the following lists, explaining why you chose each one. Justify at least two different considerations:
1. What personal characteristics would be useful?
2. What demographic factors would strongly influence a person’s future?
3. What, if any, inherited characteristics can predict a child’s future?