4 ms·

How do you know AI lie detectors don't work?

rspeer 8y ago
Because there is no plausible existing technology by which it would. And it's a similar promise to a lot of other over-promising AI technologies that don't work, like "fake news detectors".
- bufferoverflow 8y ago
  "Because there is no plausible existing technology by which it would" And how do you know that?
  - frankharv 8y ago
    Because I read HackerNews https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18155548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18155548
  - frankharv 8y ago
    The polygraph is as useful at catching lies as the Scientologist E-Meter (1) is to testing religion conviction. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/
    - aptwebapps 8y ago
      This isn't a polygraph. The article calls it a lie detector and we call polygraph tests lie detectors but the claimed mechanism here is a bit different. I'm not for it, but it's not a polygraph as described.
    - bufferoverflow 8y ago
      Except this is new tech, and your only argument is that the old tech doesn't work, which I agree with.
      - realusername 8y ago
        This isn't new tech, it's going to use micro-gestures which is a questionable science. AI does not mean anything, you need inputs.
        monkeynotes 8y ago
        This is an interesting article[1], the opinion of the author is that no reliable studies have been conducted as to if humans can detect deceit at all. He is skeptical that machines can deduce deceit using micro expressions. Quote: "Looking for cues to deception merely from ephemeral facial micro-expressions is questionable and likely fruitless. Micro gestures may be indicative of internal emotional turmoil that is being suppressed, but that is it. The distinguished Paul Ekman, who in fact coined the term micro - expression has stated in his book Telling Lies that micro expressions are rare and they "don't occur that often" (Ekman 1985, 131, 165). Plus as others have said, there is no single behavior indicative of deception (Matsumoto et. al., 2011, 1-4). I am concerned that machines that focus solely on the face will no doubt miss other information from the body (sweating, jittery hand, etc.) or generate lots of false positives because negative emotions abound especially where such machines are intended such as airports (stress of travel, stress of being subjected to searches, or inconvenient interviews, etc) or in a police setting." [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/spycatcher/201203/the-truth-about-lie-detection https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/spycatcher/201203/th...
        lucb1e 8y ago
        After this poor person getting downvoted six levels deep while asking reasonable questions, finally a comment that answers the question. I was wondering the same thing as u/bufferoverflow: sure, polygraphs don't work, but I've never heard of microexpressions being pseudoscience before. Everyone acts as if it's a given that whatever possible lie detector you come up with, it has to be snakeoil.
      - bildung 8y ago
        AFAIK we don't have a single reliable mechanism of action to reliably detect lying. ML won't change that - without a known mechanism of action, how can you define reliable features to train on?
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    As always, the burden of proof lies (knee slap!) with those who claim a lie detector does work.
    - bufferoverflow 8y ago
      I didn't make any claims, but the comment I replied to did.
realusername 8y ago
Because there's no reliable way which you can tell if people lie or not, putting AI in front of it won't change any of that.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
denzil_correa 8y ago
The "Burden of Proof" lies on the entity making a claim [0]. Besides, we do know that polygraphs don't work [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law) [1] https://www.wired.com/story/inside-polygraph-job-screening-black-mirror/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-polygraph-job-screening-b...
- lucb1e 8y ago
  We know that a polygraph does not work, but how do we know that this won't work without real-world data? And nobody is being accused of anything, there is no burden of proof involved yet. If you mean that we can't subject someone to a lie detector while asking questions, i.e. we cannot subject anyone to anything without a reasonable suspicion, then we couldn't have airport security at all unless someone tweeted "today's plane is gonna be da bomb!" Which would be a lot better than the current state of things in the USA, but that's not how this works.
Jmcdd 8y ago
Because _we know_ that AI lie detectors can't currently prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone is lying. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens's_razor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens's_razor

Because there is no plausible existing technology by which it would. And it's a similar promise to a lot of other over-promising AI technologies that don't work, like "fake news detectors".

bufferoverflow 8y ago
"Because there is no plausible existing technology by which it would" And how do you know that?
- frankharv 8y ago
  Because I read HackerNews https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18155548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18155548
- frankharv 8y ago
  The polygraph is as useful at catching lies as the Scientologist E-Meter (1) is to testing religion conviction. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/
  - aptwebapps 8y ago
    This isn't a polygraph. The article calls it a lie detector and we call polygraph tests lie detectors but the claimed mechanism here is a bit different. I'm not for it, but it's not a polygraph as described.
  - bufferoverflow 8y ago
    Except this is new tech, and your only argument is that the old tech doesn't work, which I agree with.
    - realusername 8y ago
      This isn't new tech, it's going to use micro-gestures which is a questionable science. AI does not mean anything, you need inputs.
      - monkeynotes 8y ago
        This is an interesting article[1], the opinion of the author is that no reliable studies have been conducted as to if humans can detect deceit at all. He is skeptical that machines can deduce deceit using micro expressions. Quote: "Looking for cues to deception merely from ephemeral facial micro-expressions is questionable and likely fruitless. Micro gestures may be indicative of internal emotional turmoil that is being suppressed, but that is it. The distinguished Paul Ekman, who in fact coined the term micro - expression has stated in his book Telling Lies that micro expressions are rare and they "don't occur that often" (Ekman 1985, 131, 165). Plus as others have said, there is no single behavior indicative of deception (Matsumoto et. al., 2011, 1-4). I am concerned that machines that focus solely on the face will no doubt miss other information from the body (sweating, jittery hand, etc.) or generate lots of false positives because negative emotions abound especially where such machines are intended such as airports (stress of travel, stress of being subjected to searches, or inconvenient interviews, etc) or in a police setting." [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/spycatcher/201203/the-truth-about-lie-detection https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/spycatcher/201203/th...
      - lucb1e 8y ago
        After this poor person getting downvoted six levels deep while asking reasonable questions, finally a comment that answers the question. I was wondering the same thing as u/bufferoverflow: sure, polygraphs don't work, but I've never heard of microexpressions being pseudoscience before. Everyone acts as if it's a given that whatever possible lie detector you come up with, it has to be snakeoil.
    - bildung 8y ago
      AFAIK we don't have a single reliable mechanism of action to reliably detect lying. ML won't change that - without a known mechanism of action, how can you define reliable features to train on?
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  As always, the burden of proof lies (knee slap!) with those who claim a lie detector does work.
  - bufferoverflow 8y ago
    I didn't make any claims, but the comment I replied to did.

realusername 8y ago

Because there's no reliable way which you can tell if people lie or not, putting AI in front of it won't change any of that.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

denzil_correa 8y ago

The "Burden of Proof" lies on the entity making a claim [0]. Besides, we do know that polygraphs don't work [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(law) [1] https://www.wired.com/story/inside-polygraph-job-screening-black-mirror/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-polygraph-job-screening-b...

lucb1e 8y ago
We know that a polygraph does not work, but how do we know that this won't work without real-world data? And nobody is being accused of anything, there is no burden of proof involved yet. If you mean that we can't subject someone to a lie detector while asking questions, i.e. we cannot subject anyone to anything without a reasonable suspicion, then we couldn't have airport security at all unless someone tweeted "today's plane is gonna be da bomb!" Which would be a lot better than the current state of things in the USA, but that's not how this works.

Jmcdd 8y ago

Because _we know_ that AI lie detectors can't currently prove beyond reasonable doubt that someone is lying. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens's_razor https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens's_razor