"Blade Runner" Eye-Scanning Lie Detector May Be Coming To A Dystopian Future Near You
"Blade Runner" Eye-Scanning Lie Detector May Be
Coming To A Dystopian Future Near You
by Tyler Durden Thu, 12/06/2018 - 23:40
A futuristic eye-scanning lie detector reminiscent of the
Voight-Kampff device in Blade Runner may be coming to a dystopian future near
you.
Funded by billionaire Mark Cuban and released in 2014 by
startup Converus, the "EyeDetect" examines things like pupil
dilation, blink rate and other eye movements to determine whether a person is
lying, reports Mark Harris of Wired, who traveled to Converus' testing center
north of Seattle to check it out.
Released in 2014 by Converus, a Mark Cuban–funded
startup, EyeDetect is pitched by its makers as a faster, cheaper, and more
accurate alternative to the notoriously unreliable polygraph. By many measures,
EyeDetect appears to be the future of lie detection—and it’s already being used
by local and federal agencies to screen job applicants. -Wired
The device is "largely automatic" writes Harris
- who notes that it does not suffer from one of the major pitfalls of polygraph
lie detectors; human operators who can introduce their own biases when they
analyze and interpret tests. According to former police chief and Converus
employee Jon Walters, EyeDetect is bias-free - and claims to have an accuracy
rate of 86 percent - vs. 60-75 percent accuracy of a polygraph.
Wired's own research refutes this, however, finding
through public records requests that "like polygraphs, EyeDetect's results
may introduce human bias an manipulation into its results."
"Converus calls EyeDetect a next-generation lie
detector, but it's essentially just the same old polygraph," says
transparency activist and independent researcher, Vera Wilde, who has studied
polygraphs for several years."
"It's astounding to me that there are paying
customers deploying this technology and actually screening people with
it," said William Iacono - a professor of neuroscience, psychology,
psychiatry and law at the University of Minnesota.
In a study from
2013, the National Security Agency used an early version of EyeDetect to
identify NSA employees who had taken a cellphone into a secure area, a minor
security violation. The test accurately identified just 50 percent of those
guilty of the mistake (the same as you would expect from chance) and just over
80 percent of those innocent. -Wired
Still, Converus already has attracted a mountain of
interest for its new device - claiming to have "close to 500 customers in
40 countries," most of whom are using it to screen job applicants. The
list of buyers includes the federal government, as well as 21 state and local
law enforcement agencies.
The State Department recently used the system to vet
local hires at the US Embassy in Guatemala to the tune of $25,000 taxpayer
dollars, according to Wired.
Converus told WIRED that a Middle Eastern country has
purchased EyeDetect and is planning to use it to check whether people entering
the country are associated with terrorist activity. In an email to the Salt
Lake City Police Department last year, obtained through WIRED's public records
requests, a Converus executive wrote that the company had “been identified as
the solution for ‘extreme vetting’ by the new [Trump] administration.” (Though
there were discussions with the Trump administration about using EyeDetect for
vetting, Converus says the administration never committed to using EyeDetect.)
-Wired
The test takes 30 minutes, as opposed to the 2-4 hours
required to conduct a polygraph, while the device is also comfortable vs. the
traditional cyborg-looking polygraph setup.
"When I was wired up for the polygraph, it was kind
of intimidating," said Walters. "Here you just sit and look into the
machine."
Harris describes his own test:
I settle in for a demonstration: a swift 15-minute demo
where the test will guess a number I’m thinking of. An infrared camera observes
my eye, capturing images 60 times a second while I answer questions on a
Microsoft Surface tablet. That data is fed to Converus’ servers, where an
algorithm, tuned and altered using machine learning, calculates whether or not
I’m being truthful.
...
He asks me to pick a number between 1 and 10 and write it
on a scrap of paper before I sit down in front of the EyeDetect camera. Walters
instructs me to lie about my chosen number, to allow the system to detect my
falsehood. If I beat it, Walters promises to give me $50. (Journalistic ethics
mean I’d pass any winnings along to a charity.)
A series of questions flash across a screen, asking about
the number I picked in straightforward and then roundabout ways. I click true
or false to each question. The EyeDetect camera feels no more intrusive than a
normal webcam, and I do my best to keep my face and expression neutral, whether
I’m lying or telling the truth.
Almost immediately after the test is over, the screen
flashes a prediction based on my eye motions and responses. EyeDetect thinks
that I chose the number 3. I had, in fact, picked the number 1. But when I
reach for Walters’ crisp $50 note, he stops me. It turns out that Walters’
interpretation of “a number between 1 and 10” includes only the digits 2
through 9. I had fooled the machine, but only by not playing by its rules. On
my next attempt, the system correctly detects my hidden number. -Wired
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