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Lie Detector Glasses Coming Soon
Zelphyr writes "The EE Times is reporting on a product soon to be released by an Israeli company that allows the wearer of special glasses to tell whether the person they are talking to is telling a lie. Not only that, they can tell you whether someone loves you! Apparently a PC version of the 'love detector' is in the works as well. Think my Windows box will be upset when it knows how much I hate it?"
V Entertainment claims the love detector has demonstrated 96 percent accuracy.
Oh, good. I'm glad that they have tested this empirically and have hard numbers for us.The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
Better keeps this away from any large group of politicians... it just might explode.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
... but where are the X-Ray glasses promised to us in the throngs of comic books of our youth? Hmmm?
It will end up being a 'just wanna be friends' detector.
'No Joe, you're reading it wrong, he just wants to fuck you.'
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Just what I've always wanted, the unscientific* and unreliable results of traditional polygraphy, only in portable form!!
Where do I sign up?
(Oh, sorry.. there is research that has PROVEN the polygraph to have 50% accuracy rate.. ranking it right up there with the 'other' lie detector: A coin with the word 'truth' on one side and 'lie' on the other!)
Do you seriously think your Windows box cares if you love it or not? If it did, it'd be treating you much better.
Israeli company that allows the wearer of special glasses to tell whether the person they are talking to is telling a lie. Not only that, they can tell you whether someone loves you!
I was going to make a joke about these glasses telling me that the Israeli CEO was lying about the usefulness of his product, but then I realized I'd fallen into a logic paradox. : (
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In London? Need a Physics Tutor?
American Weblog in London
Remember back in 96-97 there was a big rage in "lie detection software" which supposedly would analyze audio input of someone speaking and then match their voice stress level to either "True" or "False" indicators?
It was crap. I think more than a few morning radio shows tried to use it on their callers with failure after failure. I tried a copy myself and found that not only was it horribly written, but even if you were able to get the subject to "train" it (by answering several questions that are known to be true) it gave inncorrect responses virtually half the time.
Come to think of it, the software might have been made by an Israeli company too. Maybe the same one, I don't know. Can't remember the name but it was horrid.
Do I think the FBI/CIA might have technology like this, to analyze voice stress or facial temperature and determine if you are lying? Sure, why not. But there's a reason why lie detection technology is not admissible in court. It just doesn't work. Too many experts can beat it and too many amateurs get nervous and give false positives.
-JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
How about the "open to one night stand" detector.
I bet they are not compatible with beer goggles.
If these work with at least 90% "accuracy" I say our elected politicians ban these, citing "national security!"
There are serious doubts as to whether polygraph machines actually work or are simply junk science... and that criticism is of using polygraphs in a controlled environment like an interrogation room used by law-enforcement types. Now this company wants us to believe that an under-paid & under-trained security screener working in a chaotic environment like a busy airport is going to be able to detect a lie using their unproven product? Ha!
Our products were originally for law enforcement use -- we get all our technology from Nemesys-co...
Nemesys-co? What, are they a division of the E-Ville Group or something?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You wouldn't believe how often women lie when you ask them "Are you carrying pepper spray?"
Trolling is a art,
I know, that's not a problem for most slashdotters, but..
Do I look fat in this?
Did you like the meal I made?
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I can see disaster and a lot of broken relationships.
In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
So let's assume the 90% accuracy figure is not bullshit (which it probably is). That means 1 out of 10 innocent passengers will be harrassed as suspected terrorists and 1 out of 10 terrorists will be allowed through. Not especially comforting thoughts in either case.
A certain percentage of the population lies so comfortably and so easily that this sort of thing is useless for catching them in a lie. Guess which percentage of the population politicians are in?
Is it fascism yet?
Polygraphing is a given hot topic, there are zealots in both proponent and opponent camps. I find it diffucult to find an objective source of information on the topic and its accuracy.
Antipolygraph.org has a link here
and the American Polygraph Association has a link here
Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
Yeah, but the psychological power of being hooked up to a machine that can tell if you are lying is huge. Sure, the system can be beaten, and that has been proven. But most people don't know that, and furthermore don't know how to beat it. So they might be willing to divulge the truth more readily if they believe that if they lie they will be caught. That is why the term "lie detector" is much more ominous than "polygraph".
Is there a way to programmatically tell if someone is lying? I think there are general "tells" that most people do when they lie, and a computer can be taught to recognize these. But I don't think it will generally be accurate enough to escape harsh (and well deserved) scrutiny from the scientific community.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
It reminds me of the old joke about a mental patient that believed that he was Napoleon Bonaparte. After many years of treatment, he was ready to be released. As a final test, they gave him a polygraph examination. When asked whether he was Napoleon Bonaparte, he said no. The polygraph examiner concluded that he was lying.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Polygraph tests, and probably these glasses, too, make far too many assumptions about certain physiological responses which occur when someone is not being truthful. Firstly, they assume that a raise in heart rate or pulse can only mean that the person is lying, which is simply untrue. Secondly, unlike polygraphs, there's no way for these glasses to perform a control on the person being examined (meaning that you measure what a person's "normal" physiological patterns are like). And even those controls performed are dubious, at best, because there are simply too many variables to consider. Even in basic psychology classes, they go into the problems with polygraphs in detail, and it's not hard to deconstruct the test's assumptions, even for first-year university students.
Suppose you went up to a girl and asked her when the last time she gave a blow job was, and she answers you (hypothetically, she'd probably slap you in reality). You'd probably register a raise in blood pressure and heart rate. Are you to conclude that she lied to you? No, that's simply absurd. You asked her a personal question, out of the blue. Of course she'd be surprised. Furthermore, are you going to act normally and cooly when someone with glasses that can supposedly tell whether you're lying or not is asking you questions? Probably not. If you're an innocent man being polygraphed to see if you've committed a relatively serious crime, you're not exactly going to be acting normally, either.
Polygraph results are inadmissible in court for a good reason. I have a very hard time buying their "96% accurate" figure.
I think they need to have these guys make glasses which detect if the person you are looking at has a bomb strapped to his waist.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Amir Lieberman, the developer of the system, is also responsible for the previous rash of questionable truth detector software, which happens to be still available. It did recommend training, and it was widely sold for its ability to work over the phone. It even has a sequal. (warning, Not compatible with Opera. Probably not Mozilla.)
Namesysco doesn't claim very high accuracy for the Truster software. "The voice analyst achieved an overall accuracy rate of 78% for truthful subjects and 61% for deceptive subjects." In other words, only 10% more liars were caught than flipping a coin, while 22% of innocent subjects were considered lying.
The American Polygraph Society does not have a much rosier view of the situation. They have concluded that Computerized Voice Stress Analysis, and specifically the Truster software, has only a "chance-level detection of deception,"
And actually, the dead giveaway to the scam should be from the lion's mouth himself. "Our products were originally for law enforcement use ? we get all our technology from Nemesys-co ? but we need more development time [for that application]" In other words, "our products don't work and can't be sold unless you slap a 'for entertainment purposes only' label upon them. Our products are to 'entertain' airport security."
Good catch.
The ______ Agenda
The only thing this device can measure is physiological arousal level, and it can't tell one kind of arousal from another. This is precisely the same problem with polygraph.
Both require interpretation. That requires training. Both can be bamboozled by anyone who can control their physio responses. That requires training too; yoga is good, but biofeedback is very simple and nearly subconscious.
Anyone can learn to fool them. And I am not about to place my personal safety in the hands of some previously underemployed and undereducated, and presently overworked and undertrained glorified rent-a-cop. I mean, my respect and sympathy to the hardworking TSA people at the airports, but they are not EVER going to receive adequate training to be able to correctly interperate physiological response measures in context. I would rather trust a Scientologist with their "clearing" device (a simple electrodermal activity meter) because at least they have experience in interperating their results in the context of a structured interview. A polygraph is not a structured interview, and some security guard spouting random accusations in the form of questions definitely is not.
I sincerely hope this is just another bogus device that is being publicized as part of the general anti-terrorism psyops, to keep the bad guys guessing as to what can really be done. Let them spend a few million on more high tech Dunsels. But if they deploy these for regular use, everyone who had too much coffee that morning and just rushed in late from a traffic jam to the airport is going to be targeted.
BTW, the sign on my office (room 9-151, VA Hospital, West Haven CT) says "Electrophysiology Lab". I know whereof I rant.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B