The_Week_UK_-_Issue_1251__02_November_2019_UserUpload.Net

58 The last word

THE WEEK2November 2019

Welearntolieaschildren,

betweentheagesoftwo

andfive.Byadulthood,we

areprolific.Welietoour

employers,ourpartners

and,mostofall,onestudy

hasfound,toourmothers.

Themajorityofthe2 0 0lies

whichresearcherssaywe

heareverydayare“white”

–theinconsequential

niceties(“Iloveyour

dress!”)thatgreasethe

wheelsofhuman

interaction.Butaccording

tothe psychologist Richard

Wiseman,we alsotellone

or two“big”lies aday.We

lie topromoteorprotect

ourselvesandtohurtor

avoid hurtingothers.

Themysteryishow wekeep

gettingawaywithit.Our

bodiesexposeus inevery

way. Hearts race, sweat

drips,and micro-expressionsleakfromsmallmusclesinthe

face. Even so,we arehopelessat spottingdeception.Onaverage,

people canseparatetruthfrom liesjust54%of thetime–hardly

betterthantossingacoin. “People arebadatitbecause the

differencesbetween truth-tellersand liars aretypicallysmalland

unreliable,” saidAldertVrij, apsychologist atPortsmouth

University.Somepeople freeze whenputon the spot,others

becomemore animated.Liars can spin yarns packedwithcolour

anddetail;truth-tellerscanseemvagueandevasive.

Humanshave been tryingto

overcome thisproblemfor

millennia.Thesearchfora

perfectlie detectorhasinvolved

torture, trialsbyordealand, in

ancientIndia, an encounterwith

adonkey inadark room–ifthe donkeybrayed,the accused’s

guilt was confirmed.Three thousand years ago in China, the

accused were forced to chewand spit outrice; thegrainswere

thoughttos tick in the dry,nervousmouths of the guilty. In1730,

thewriter DanielDefoesuggested takingthepulse of suspected

pickpockets.“Guiltcarries fear alwaysaboutwith it,” hewrote.

“There isatremorin theblood ofathief.”Morerecently,lie

detection hasbeenequated withthe judderingstyluses of the

polygraph machine,the quintessential liedetector beloved by TV

detectives.Butnoneoft hese methods haveyieldedareliableway

to separate fiction from fact.

That couldsoon change.Inrecentdecades,the rise of cheap

computingpower,brain-scanning technologiesandAIhas given

birth towhat manyclaimis apowerful new generationof

lie-detectiontools.Start-upswant us to believethat avirtual ly

infallible liedetector is just around thecorner. Theirinventions

are being snappedup by police forces ,stateagencies andnations

desperate to securethemselvesagainstforeignthreats. Theyare

alsobeing used by employers, insurance companiesandwelfare

officers.“We’veseenan

increaseininterestfrom

boththe privatesectorand

withingovernment,”said

ToddMickelsen, theCEO

ofConverus,which makes

alie detector basedon eye

movementsandsubtle

changes inpupilsize.

Converus’stechnology,

EyeDetect,hasbeenused

by FedExin Panama and

Uberin Mexicotoscreen

outdrivers withcriminal

histories.Othercustomers

includethe governmentof

Afghanistan,McDonald’s

and dozensof USpolice

departments.

Soon,large-scale lie-

detectionprogrammes

could becoming tothe

borders oftheUSand

theEU, wheretheywould

flag potentiallydeceptive

travellersfor further questioning. But assuchtoolsinfiltratemore

andmoreareasof life,thereareurgentquestionstobe a nswered

abouttheirscientificvalidityandethicaluse.Inourageofhigh

surveillance,theideathatamachinecouldread ourthoughtsfeels

moreplausiblethan ever.Butwhatiflie- detectiontechnology

provesto bebiased –or doesn’t actuallywork?

Formost ofus,lying ismorestressfulthanhonesty.Itdemands

thatwebearwhat psychologists callacognitiveload.Carrying

thatburden, mostlie-detection

theories assume, leavesevidence

in ourbodies and actions.Asa

result,lie-detection technologies

tend toexamine fivetypesof

evidence.Thefirsttwo are

verbal:the things wesayand

how we saythem. Scientistshavefound thatpeople wholie in

theironlin edatingprofile stendtouse thewords “I”, “me” and

“my” moreoften; while voice-stress analysis, which aimstodetect

deceptionbased on change sintoneofvoice, has been usedto

catchbenefit cheats over thephone.The thirdsource of evidence

–bodylanguage–can also reveal hiddenfeel ings.Some liars

displayso-c alled “duper’s delight”,afleetingexpr ession ofglee

that crossestheface when they thin kthey have gotaway with it.

Cognitiveloadalsomakes people move differently,andliars

trying to “act natural” canend updoingthe opposite. The fourth

type ofevidenceisphysiological. Thepolygraphmeasures blood

pressure, breathing rateandsweat. Infraredcameras analyse facial

temperature. Unlike Pinocchio,ournoses mayactually shrink

slightlywhen we lie as blood flowstowardsthe brain.

In the 1990s, new technologiesopened upafifth avenue of

investigation: the brain. In the secondseason ofthehit Netflix

documentaryMakingaMurderer,StevenAvery,whoiss erving

alife sentence forabrutal killing hesays he didnot commit,

undergoesa“brainfinger printing”exam,which uses an

Thetruth machine: the race to

create aperfect lie detector

John Larson demonstrates his polygraph–“aFrankenstein’smonster”

Thescienceofexposingdeceptionhasachequeredpast–butnow,theriseofcheapcomputingpower,brain-scanningtechnologies

andAIhasgivenbirthtopowerfulnewtools,saysAmitKatwala.Couldaninfallibleliedetectorbejustaroundthecorner?

“Thesearchfortheperfectliedetectorhas

involvedtorture,trialbyordealand,inancient

India,anencounterwithadonkeyinthedark”