Slashdot Mirror
Technology and the End of Lying
HughPickens.com writes: The Washington Post reports that lying may soon become a lost art as our digital, data-hoarding culture means that more and more evidence is piling up to undermine our lies. "The research shows the way lies are really uncovered is by comparing what someone is saying to the evidence," says Tim Levine,"and with all these news analytics that can be done, it's going to enable lie detection in a way that was previously impossible." For example in Pennsylvania, police are prosecuting a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted earlier this year after data from her Fitbit didn't match up with her story, Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument, instant messaging programs that archive digital conversations make it easy to look back and see exactly who said what — and if it matches up with what a person is saying now. "Lying online can be very dangerous," says Jeff Hancock. "Not only are you leaving a record for yourself on your machine, but you're leaving a record on the person that you were lying to."
Even more alarming for liars is the incorporation of lie detector technology into the facial recognition technology. Researchers claim video-analysis software can analyze eye movement successfully to identify whether or not a subject is fibbing 82.5 percent of the time. The new technology heightens surveillance capabilities—from monitoring actions to assessing emotions—in ways that make an individual ever more vulnerable to government authorities, marketers, employers, and to any and every person with whom we interact. "We must understand that—at the individual level and with regard to interpersonal relations—too much truth and transparency can be harmful," says Norberto Andrade. "The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth will turn us into overly cautious, calculating, and suspicious people."
Even more alarming for liars is the incorporation of lie detector technology into the facial recognition technology. Researchers claim video-analysis software can analyze eye movement successfully to identify whether or not a subject is fibbing 82.5 percent of the time. The new technology heightens surveillance capabilities—from monitoring actions to assessing emotions—in ways that make an individual ever more vulnerable to government authorities, marketers, employers, and to any and every person with whom we interact. "We must understand that—at the individual level and with regard to interpersonal relations—too much truth and transparency can be harmful," says Norberto Andrade. "The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth will turn us into overly cautious, calculating, and suspicious people."
Not really. Facial analysis is unlikely to work on psychopaths, especially those who fully believes in the alternate reality the invent.
That leaves looking at electronic communication, but that information is private. (For politicians, the whole honest people have nothing to hide thingy only applies to common plebs like you and me.)
It is also only a problem for corrupt bureaucrats.
True bureaucrats that follow the forms religiously won't have a problem with this. They would amputate their own legs if the correct check-mark for it is set. To them filling out a form untruthfully is a mortal sin.
...and those that want to believe the lies will find more reasons to do so.
Great example of our technology out-pacing our wisdom. What many people label "lying" is actually misremembering. Our biological memory-retrieval systems are extremely bad. Every time you remember something, your brain is rewriting the memory, meaning the more you remember an event the more your brain distorts it.
This happens over and over again in our courts, people honestly remember things completely wrong and we call them liars. The film "Rosemary's Baby" is based on a true story of ritualistic child abuse, except the "real" story was entirely implanted in the minds of everyone involved by psychologists. Even the accused were convinced they were guilty. It's absurdly easy for a psychologist to implant false memories of our childhoods in experiments.
The wording in this post unnerves me. The older I get and the more digital the world becomes, the more I learn that I misremember 60% of what has happened in my life. If technology is used to prosecute anyone who makes a statement that contradicts hard factual data, then many innocent people will be prosecuted. We need our scientific wisdom to catch up to our cognitive biases.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
... who catalogued their entire lives online including endless photographs, times and dates, feelings, opinions, likes, dislikes etc.
Wait, whats that loud clucking sound I can hear?
Not really. They have control of the media, that is, the modern propaganda apperatus. The truth no longer matters in such a sphere. Lies can become truth, and truth blasphemy if the media simply choose a narrative and stick to it no matter what.
We live in the age of "framing", "narratives" and "explainer journalism". The truth, reason, hard evidence? None carry more weight than a twitter post these days.
... The post literally cited a fake rape claim... and we're seeing those in the media constantly now... published by every newspaper in the western world.
So I think you've confused "MRA" with "everyone".
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Facts can be changed. Welcome to 1984.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
I am disturbed by how many fake rape claims there are though. Something about that should be done.
Perhaps this is awfully unfair of me, but I get the distinct impression that unprosecuted rapes don't bother you half as much.
Actually, this particular bias is to be expected, for both sexes. You'd expect women to worry mostly about unprosecuted rapes, since they're more likely than men to be raped. And you'd expect men to worry mostly about false rape accusations, since they're more likely that women to be falsely accused of rape.
Similarly, you'd expect people with large bank accounts to be more worried about identity thefts than people who store all their money under their mattress, while you'd expect poor people to be more worried about armed robbery of what little cash they have.
People tend to worry mostly about things that can effect them, for obvious reasons.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
It is awfully unfair. Show me something I said that suggests I'm okay with any crime going prosecuted?
It is a mark of the times that expecting some integrity in these matters is read by some as advocating rape.
Lets say I accuse you of murder... and you want due process. You want to my claims investigated.
What if I turned around and said that all of that discourages people from reporting murders and that your due process rights effectively make it easier for people to get away with murder?
Seem reasonable? Of course not. That is the general nature of the argument we're having though because you're suggesting that if false accusations are discouraged that I am thus a rape apologist or enabler or something.
Nothing of the kind. I'm an advocate for due process and integrity in the law.
So yes... that was awfully unfair... and silly.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
First, I'm not an MRA, and your immediate to leap to identity politics speaks far more poorly of you than of me.
Second, if you set someone up to be potentially executed... that's attempted first degree murder in my opinion. The fact that you're using a state executioner to snuff someone is besides the point. So that's where I get numbers like that. If you set someone up to that extent for those sorts of crimes then you tried to lock someone in a box for 30 years. What is the crime for kidnapping someone and throwing them in a box for thirty years? Because I can assure you... it wouldn't be 5 years... or 1 for good behavior and probation which is apparently what you think is reasonable.
Now, if you're at all capable of having a rational and honest discussion about this... you'll find I'm reasonable and open to other points of view. However, if you're got nothing but ad hominem, identity politics, guilt by association, strawman, and other assorted rhetorical bullshit... then I really have no choice but to label you a shithead and move on. I mean... what should I or anyone else do if they're met by someone in a discussion and that is literally all they do?
Be a better person. You like to morally judge people but you never look at yourself in the mirror. Be a better person.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument
Obviously the author has never been in an argument on /.
Also, there's the implicit assumption that all arguments can be resolved by "facts." In the real world, facts require interpretation and context. If you want to resolve a question like "Was person X at location Y at time Z?" then the facts needed to come to an answer usually have a relatively straightforward interpretation.
But questions like "Did person X cause Y?" or "Is person X responsible/culpable for issue Y?" are not often resolvable by appeals to facts. Both sides can provide their "facts," but who wins the argument often is a matter of interpretation.
And that's often where the "fact" problem comes in -- similar to arguments on Slashdot, it's often easy for someone to produce a battery of "facts" to support an argument. But if that person is biased and trying to win an argument, he/she may deliberately choose facts in a selective manner... which may significantly distort the truth.
Being able to verify "facts" is only a small part of determining "truth" in most circumstances. If most arguments could easily be resolved simply by collecting facts, we'd have no need for a judicial system, for example -- we could just have a simple legal "scoresheet," tally up the "facts," and then we know the "truth" which can determine guilt or culpability or whatever.
In the real world, "lying" is a much more complex behavior than simply stating demonstrably false facts -- it involves deliberate omissions of relevant facts or additions of irrelevant facts which can lead to misleading conclusions. Technology does much less to mitigate those latter concerns: in fact, with the proliferation of more and more data, it can make it harder to sift through what is actually relevant and irrelevant to answer a particular question.