The race to create a perfect lie detector – and the dangers of succeeding (21 minute read)
Brain scanning technologies, merged with advancements in artificial intelligence, are expected to make lie-detection systems that are much more accurate than conventional polygraphs. People are only able to separate facts from fiction around 54 percent of the time, which is not much better than flipping a coin. Advancements in recent years include the rise in affordable computing power, brain scanning techniques, and AI. Some startups, wishing to gain investments or operate at a commercial level, want us to believe that an almost infallible lie detector is on the brink of discovery. The main technological advantage when working with AI is the ability to utilize vast amounts of data to make inferences which humans would miss. In this era of mass surveillance, with people’s personal lives existing online, it is scary to consider that entities such as governments or corporations would want to peer into one's innermost thoughts. No matter how good the technologies get, the liar that believes his/her own lies will still be protected from the technology.