Abstract
The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced lie detection tools in business, educational, community, and governmental contexts signals a new era of deception detection. With these AI developments, collections of intimate biometric information such as facial and retinal data, keystroke patterns, brain scans, and physiological changes in the cardiovascular system are combined with personal profiles to produce analyses of a subject’s supposed veracity. This article explores some early lie detection technologies (such as the polygraph) and discusses the influences that lie detection initiatives have had in human interactions through the decades. It addresses the empirical issues of whether specific AI technologies have the capability of recognizing lying along with the related cultural concerns involving the proliferation of lie detection implementations. It analyzes the appropriateness of using invasive and often unreliable new AI methodologies for lie detection in comparison with previous methods such as the polygraph. The article also examines ethical and cultural concerns involving the obtaining and analyzing of such intimate data. It analyzes the subordinate statuses of the human subjects of lie detection as well as issues of consent for those that are faced with complex and often opaque systems. Whatever the answers to questions about reliability and mental privacy, many AI-enabled lie detection technologies are currently being used in security and police procedures, employment interviewing, and as part of anti-cheating educational initiatives.
Recommended Citation
Oravec, Jo Ann.
"From Polygraphs to Truth Machines: Artificial Intelligence in Lie Detection."
Critical Humanities
2,
2
(2024).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33470/2836-3140.1036
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