Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Built an 'Online Lie Detector.' Honestly, That Could Be a Problem (wired.com)
A group of researchers claims to have built a prototype for an "online polygraph" that uses machine learning to detect deception from text alone. But as a few machine learning academics point out, what these researchers have actually demonstrated is the inherent danger of overblown machine learning claims. From a report: When Wired showed the study to a few academics and machine learning experts, they responded with deep skepticism. Not only does the study not necessarily serve as the basis of any kind of reliable truth-telling algorithm, it makes potentially dangerous claims: A text-based "online polygraph" that's faulty, they warn, could have far worse social and ethical implications if adopted than leaving those determinations up to human judgment.
"It's an eye-catching result. But when we're dealing with humans, we have to be extra careful, especially when the implications of whether someone's lying could lead to conviction, censorship, the loss of a job," says Jevin West, a professor at the Information School at the University of Washington and a noted critic of machine learning hype. "When people think the technology has these abilities, the implications are bigger than a study."
"It's an eye-catching result. But when we're dealing with humans, we have to be extra careful, especially when the implications of whether someone's lying could lead to conviction, censorship, the loss of a job," says Jevin West, a professor at the Information School at the University of Washington and a noted critic of machine learning hype. "When people think the technology has these abilities, the implications are bigger than a study."
If this app was put online labeled as "Fred's AMAZING online truth teller" with the usual ads for bikinis, penis enlargement, crockery, the latest Chevy, I don't think you have anything to worry about in terms of it causing problems.
If it's part of the Google home page or comes up automatically when submitting documents to the IRS, I think there is a great deal of concern regarding whether or not people believe the results are accurate.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
But it can't even stop auto correct from sucking!
- Alex
I suspect it will say "false"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
When it can determine its own press release is a lie, then I'll believe it.
All ML algorithms have an error rate. Its baked into the design. ML researchers talk about error rate all the time. There is even a term, 'irreducible error' in ML that refers to data points that can never be classified correctly by a specific algorithm. Its a mistake to completely trust what a computer database tells you because the wrong data could have been input or bugs could have changed that data in a weird way. Its all those risks plus the error that comes from the ML algorithm. The way to get around this is to have multiple algorithms "vote" but even then there is still an error rate. The error rate can be double digit % or lower than 1% but its always there. And all of this is on top of the risk of bad data just like a DB gives you. Garbage in/garbage out is a real principle. Trusting this stuff is tricky but the bar isn't perfection. Its better than a skilled human. And since I don't really trust a "skilled human" in lie detection, why on earth would I trust a ML algorithm that at best is only marginally better than that and could be far worse.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Then someone will invent an online lie corrector to massage your lies to look like truth.
You can't tell if someone is lying online from just text. Humans tell if people are lying by their Facial expressions, Tone of voice and body language. It's actually very hard to lie without slipping in one of these areas unless you're a psychopath or a very skilled actor. It's much harder to tell from say a chat.
Much like the "real" polygraph that is prone to false positive and easy enough to fool.
Norway is a democracy. Sweden is a democracy. Canada is a democracy. France is a democracy. UK is a democracy. All five of which have better quality of life standards than the US.
But yeah, shut up
Keep adding to your post and the machine will increase its accuracy and post a scathing rebuke
So you don't care how bad things get, just as democrats suffer.
It isn't that the Democrats and Republicans have irrefutable differences, they are both Americans, and share many of the same culture and ideals.
Unfortunately you have influenced by propaganda and are no longer objective, and allowed the crudity instinct in you to become dominate.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes
Maybe Slashdot of the near future could be telling me if I'm lying or not as I type? It's a helpful service, in a Clippy kind of a way.
False positive generators are great for going fishing if you need an excuse to bypass people's rights.
Oh my dog "detected".
Captain Kirk: Everything Harry tells you is a lie. Remember that. Everything Harry tells you is a lie.
Harry Mudd: Now listen to this carefully, Norman. I am... lying.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
they're supposed to provide probable cause for a search warrant.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How have things gotten bad?
With the current trend towards anti-intellectualism we have now, this will only get worse, not better.
Read some of the info here about 'lie detection'. https://antipolygraph.org/
I have some intimate experience with polygraphs. As a convicted sex offender, I have had to submit to them as part of a treatment regimen. I have passed polygraphs I lied on, and failed them while telling the truth. The judgement lies in the examiners subjective whims, not anything objective.
Silence is a state of mime.
Kirk: we know how this will end asshole
But when we're dealing with humans, we have to be extra careful, especially when the implications of whether someone's lying could lead to conviction, censorship, the loss of a job,
We already hit people with all that stuff just for typing stuff online that we don't like, to say nothing of whether it's true or not!
As nobody has actually built a "lie detector" that is significantly more effective than random chance, and yes that includes the polygraph, those "researchers" are fooling themselves.
Even the inventor of the polygraph agrees that it's just b.s.
Are we sure these people aren't actually from North Korea?
You know, the place where "researchers" have claimed to have found a Magical Unicorn Cave, and have perfected human cloning, and so many other absurd claims.
The equipment used is just a prop. The actual test is a 'process'. The 'test' is designed to place stress on a subject and then the subject is told they are lying and or inconclusive results, etc and their behavior is observed. Little scratching machines with dials or the newer fancy laptop doodads are nothing more than props designed to make the subject believe they will be caught in a lie. You have to believe that the prop works for the 'test' to work. It's basically conditioning a person to believe, sometimes over a period of hours up to being called back in and told their results were 'inconclusive' a week or later or whatever. Oh noes!
The only 'science' involved in the equipment is the equipment between the polygrapher's ears and their ability to manipulate the testee.
People do things, despite how others may feel
Chuds do things, to spite how others may feel.
Because a polygraph only measures arousal (in the brain sense), and cannot explain why - and if you can remain calm you can fool it. There's a reason they are not used as evidence in court, the supreme court saying the results are "little better than could be obtained by the toss of a coin" is a huge part of it.
Psychohistory predicts the actions of 'mobs' but NEVER the individual...
Or a more common fallacy. Most women are murdered by someone close they know- BUT this does not mean that in an individual murder case the husband is 'guilty' cos of this statistic.
This 'online' 'lie' detctor uses the same fallacy. Process a lot of known online lies for commonality in the form of the text. Then FALSELY reverse this process to analyse new text and declare it 'lies' or 'true'.
Mid Betas and lower fall for this garbage every time.
'Universal Education' exploits the credulity of mid Betas and lower for political control purposes. To weaponise mob stupidity when the mob has been 'educated' to thinks itself 'smart'. And the thickos that fall for such fallacious arguments make up the majority of those that still visit this site. Otherwise the Deep State could never have shipped billions of dollars of arms from ex-Soviet states to Syria to arm wahhabi terror gangs backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia in an attempt to end the SECULAR regime of Syria- and act of pure satanic terror that required the backing of the same thickos of the West.
I'm dying to see what it says. It will be fooled like 85% of the population
This is a weapon, no problem. Protected by the constitution. Next.
If I typed in to it "This thing is a fraud."
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Wait, why is that computer laughing at me?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I actually lost the original article I was going to post, but found a completely different AI for lie detection. Both were from 2018.
https://futurism.com/new-ai-detects-deception-bring-end-lying-know-it/
This was developed for determining if someone is lying in a court.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40575672/goodbye-polygraphs-new-tech-uses-ai-to-tell-if-youre-lying/
This one seems to be being developed for homeland security.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
I have to agree with the skeptics. Certainly, the right software could analyse text and make some kind of assessment about the potential for deception. I have no doubt that that can be done. Some people have a good intuition about other people's honesty. I do transcription professionally and have to listen to spoken word very carefully, and I can tell that people who are lying sound a bit different from people not lying.
But it's far from a reliable measure, and it's certainly not anything I could convince someone to accept as objective proof.
And that brings us to what's really dangerous about these kinds of computer-based assessments. Does saying something is probably (but not definitely) a lie tell you anything useful? You still don't know for sure. And is that partial insight valuable enough to outweigh all the false positives that you will inevitably get? Maybe sometimes incomplete information is not better than none at all.
Honestly! Gosh darn it!
It isn't deception if the deceiver believes the statement. 9X% of garbage on the internet is people parroting false statements.
Honestly that is a problem.
Run it on Kickstarter projects and see if it can detect when the poster is lying about doing the project, or they are just going to run off with the money.
What happens when you put the claims about the lie detector in the lie detector?
-Dave
I can, and if it fail it should be made widely known.
"Could be a problem?"
Not in the vast, vast, vast majority of the world, where people know - and have always known - that the polygraph is a load of bullshit, always has been and has basically never been admissible in a court of law in most places.
Only the US are stupid enough to think you can actually make a lie detector with any accuracy whatsoever.
Robert Mueller says it's perfect.
If Slashdot had one of these, its useability would increase exponentially.
If (Posters Occupation) = "Politician" or "salesman" then text = lie
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
What idiocy is this?
Or did you mean good liars and not the bottom of the barrel obvious liars like WindBourne.
using in-duh-vidual 1's tweets!
Want an excuse to ban conservatives on various online platforms? Simple; feed the AI the DNC election platform and the SPLC;s pronouncements as "the truth sample".
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
The Lie Detector has been possibly the greatest fraud perpetuated upon man, Cops always present it as the ultimate means to interrogate people with to find out the truth. THE MACHINE IS A FRAUD!!! Don't be one of the fools who has submitted to a test. Especially in Ohio and some other places where the results are allowed as evidence in a trial. Have you not heard of or read the free book "The Lie Behind the Lie Detector"? Maybe you are such a present day tittle nothing of a wimp snowflake that you don't have even a mouse size backbone to say "NO" if or whenever asked to take one. A lie detector will prove absolutely nothing concerning what the truth actually is. I have watched over 3500 police show on TV and the web and in many, many cases someone is said to fail a test to later be found to be absolutely innocent, many, many cases where people were said to have passed a test who were to later be found to be without a doubt guilty, and many, many cases where the cops said that the test was inconclusive. If the lie detector is reliable, then there can be no "inconclusive". I have seen some cop feigning to be so, so serious when talking about lie detectror results. I have seen other cops actually laugh when the word lie detector is mentioned. You must at least try to grow a backbone if ever asked to take one of these notoriously unreliable test and say NO! Stop thinking that cops and prosecutors are men and women of integrity seeking truth and justice and shun them. Some of you will think to yourselves, if I don't cooperate with whatever the authorities want from me, then they will think I am guilty and have something to hide. My friends and family will think the same. They will think the same regardless of what you decide to do, you need to recognize and know that. You are going to have to say to hell with them and their suspensions. Better to remain free with some people hating you than to be hated by vicious strangers in prison.
It'll be interesting to see how some Wikipedia articles rate with it.