Exploring the value of life in a data-driven world

Journalist Jenny Kleeman will be talking about her book ‘The Price of Life’ at this year’s Gibraltar Literary Festival. Jenny will present her book on Sunday, November 16 at the Garrison Library.

Journalist and author Jenny Kleeman has reflected on the uncomfortable realities uncovered during the research for her book The Price of Life, which investigates how lives are routinely given a monetary value in modern systems ranging from criminal justice to healthcare and insurance.

The idea for the book was first sparked during a trip to San Francisco in November 2019 on how some of the wealthiest people in the world are giving their money away according to the principles of 'effective altruism'.

This, she told the Chronicle, is the philosophy that claims that people have a moral duty to save or improve as many lives as possible with their philanthropic donations.

“It's an approach that forces them to ask morally difficult questions, such as, which are the cheapest lives to save? If you can work that out, then you can pour your money into saving those people, and therefore get the maximum bang for your philanthropic buck,” she said.

Also adding that it turns out that the lives of children in sub–Saharan Africa are the cheapest.

“I found the idea extremely uncomfortable at the time, the idea that you could gamify philanthropy, turning it into a game with a score (lives saved) to see how well you'd done,” she said.
“I found the whole practice of putting prices on lives morally repellent.”

“But then a few months later the pandemic arrived, and governments around the world were asking similarly challenging questions, such as, how much should we be prepared to allow economies to suffer to save the most vulnerable?”

“Is it right that young people take a hit to their education so that older people survive? I realised that prices are routinely put on lives all the time, we just don't talk about it very much.”

During her research, she found that monetary valuations could at times serve a useful purpose in exposing systemic injustice. One chapter in her book explores the compensation payouts to families of victims of the 2017 London Bridge terror attack, revealing differences based on nationality and the method of attack.

“By looking at how the families of the seven different victims of the 2017 London Bridge terror attack received wildly different compensation payouts according to their nationality and whether the terrorists had killed them using a vehicle or a knife, I was able to expose a wildly unfair disparity in payments,” she said.

“Similarly, when looking at the cost of creating a life, using the price of a life as a metric, I was able to show how, at the moment, only the biologically fortunate or the wealthy are able to have children they are genetically related to.”

“Do we want to live in a world where only the rich and the lucky get to reproduce?”

She stated that the price of life is a useful tool for revealing unfairness but that it can't demonstrate the true value of a human being.

“It shows what we value at any given time, whether we intend to or not, and not the true value of a human being,” she said.

She also reflected on the morally complex individuals she encountered while writing the book, including former mafia hitman John Alite.

“I was surprised by how much I liked John Alite, the former mafia hitman I had a steak with in New York. He was charming and thoughtful, even though he's killed at least a dozen people in incredibly brutal ways,” she said.

“I was also surprised by how easy it is for people to switch off their empathy, be they health economists, insurance experts or moral philosophers, in order to do their jobs and come up with proposals that make things more fair for everyone.”

“I am glad people like that exist, but I am equally glad I'm not one of them.”

Asked whether emotion has a place in life-and-death decision making, She said: “Emotion has to come into play at some point. We are not rational computation machines, we are human beings, with ties to our community, family and society that can't be quantified.”

“We need to use a wide range of metrics to make these vital decisions, not just numbers.”

One of the most difficult aspects of her research involved informing bereaved families of the official monetary valuations assigned to their loved ones. She recalled the case of Shaquan Sammy Plummer, a local teenager whose story formed the opening chapter of her book.

“I think about the murder of Shaquan Sammy Plummer all the time. His family home is around the corner from me, and he went to school nearby. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and anyone's son could have taken his place. His mother, Jessica, is still overwhelmed by her grief, nearly 10 years on,” she said.

“The Price of Life was Book of the Week on Radio 4, and the first episode was the chapter about Shaquan's murder. A British man, now living in the USA, happened to hear the episode and got in touch with me to say that he used to live on the road where Shaquan was stabbed.”

“He had called the ambulance for Shaquan, and had tried to administer first aid to him.”

“I put him in touch with Shaquan's mother, Jessica, who was so pleased to get to speak to someone who had been there for her son's last moments. That was one real positive consequence of having told his story.”

Looking ahead, she warned that the rise of artificial intelligence could make the pricing of life more personal and pervasive.

“We are all shedding data that AI will use to make the prices of our lives ever more specific,” she said.

“It may affect our insurance premiums, whether we will be given mortgages, what medical interventions we will be entitled to as individuals, how at risk we are from kidnap etc.”

“That's why we need to be talking about these numbers now, we will increasingly be at the mercy of them.”

Despite these challenges, she remains hopeful that compassion still holds power in a world increasingly shaped by data.

“The fact that there is still such a hunger for human stories and human connection, perhaps even more so, post pandemic,” she said.

“The fact that there are book festivals! People want to truly understand each other, and come together to discuss what matters.”

“We know that we are more than just a series of data points, even if that's what makes it easier for big companies to sell us stuff.”