For those of us in a less than welcoming mood, this news from NewScientist (3 November 2018, paywall) has to be a trifle disturbing:
What’s in your suitcase? If you open the suitcase and show me what is inside, will it confirm that your answers were true?
These are just two of the questions that an automated lie-detection system will ask travellers during a six-month pilot starting this month at four border crossing points in Hungary, Latvia and Greece with countries outside the European Union. It will be coordinated by the Hungarian National Police.
The lie detector uses artificial intelligence and is part of a new tool called iBorderCtrl, developed by a Europe-wide consortium.
The pilot will involve actual travellers, who will be invited to use the system after they have passed through border control. It won’t affect their ability to travel. But the plan is that the system will eventually be able to grant people permission to cross a border by automatically assessing a range of information, including official documents, biometric data and social media activity – as well as the truthfulness of responses to security questions.
The cutesy name is just a false attempt to obscure the fact that a key part of theory of mind is under development in this project, and theory of mind is one of the key parts of being human (although it’s not unique to humans, and I have my doubts as to whether there’s any biological feature of humanity that can be considered unique, beyond the definitional genomic configuration).
This is, of course, a very small part of it, the recognition of tangible signs of deceit, and has a long ways to go. But it does trouble me. First, I’m not sure I want government authorities using a machine to guess whether or not I’m lying.
And if the machine achieves true sentience, it’ll certainly know that deceit is part of existence.
