The Idea of Reading Someone’s Thoughts in Contemporary Lie Detection Techniques

The emergence of “truth machines”?: Artificial intelligence approaches to lie detection

“…The AI applications that result can have considerable implications for human rights (Aizenberg & van den Hoven, 2020) and can foster substantial concerns and tensions among employees, whether or not they can affect in significant ways employees' levels of honesty. I argue that lie detection introduces extraordinarily intimate and sensitive issues when primarily conducted with AI agents, who are often perceived as somehow "superintelligent" in their capabilities, and less easily challenged (Fischer, 2020;Natale, 2019;Poldrack, 2018). Being investigated for theft by a human interrogator who interprets human leakage for clues can be construed as substantially different from interactions with an AIbased agent, the output of which is less often questioned on critical concerns (Mayoral et al, 2017;Elkins et al, 2019).…”

“…I largely draw from US and UK examples in this article, but development of AI-enhanced lie detection technologies is growing in HR worldwide (Ayoub, 2018;Bergers, 2018). Alder (2009) writes of the "obsession" of the US with lie detection devices, but it is a passion increasingly shared with other nations, including China, which originally resisted the proliferation of lie detection technology (Zhang, 2011), and Germany (Fischer, 2020). Many uses of lie detection technologies in the US and other nations are restricted by law, but some applications have emerged in various police, military, and workplace contexts.…”