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The Washington Post reports that lying may soon become a lost art as our digital, data-hoarding culture means that more and more evidence is piling up to undermine our lies. "The research shows the way lies are really uncovered is by comparing what someone is saying to the evidence," says Tim Levine,"and with all these news analytics that can be done, it's going to enable lie detection in a way that was previously impossible." For example in Pennsylvania, police are prosecuting a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted earlier this year after data from her Fitbit didn't match up with her story, Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument, instant messaging programs that archive digital conversations make it easy to look back and see exactly who said what -- and if it matches up with what a person is saying now. "Lying online can be very dangerous," says Jeff Hancock. "Not only are you leaving a record for yourself on your machine, but you're leaving a record on the person that you were lying to."
Even more alarming for liars is the incorporation of lie detector technology into the facial recognition technology. Researchers claim video-analysis software can analyze eye movement successfully to identify whether or not a subject is fibbing 82.5 percent of the time. The new technology heightens surveillance capabilities—from monitoring actions to assessing emotions—in ways that make an individual ever more vulnerable to government authorities, marketers, employers, and to any and every person with whom we interact. "We must understand that—at the individual level and with regard to interpersonal relations—too much truth and transparency can be harmful," says Norberto Andrade. "The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth will turn us into overly cautious, calculating, and suspicious people."
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @01:00PM
"Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument,"
Just try that on a political or religious forum and tell me how that goes....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 10 2015, @01:55PM
It's worse than that:
1. Google and other search engines have been known to get things wrong. Especially when a group who wants to promote a lie has access to a lot of money to spend on SEO.
2. Search engines only find what you want to find. It is not infrequent for somebody with predisposed false beliefs to find professional-looking websites that correspond to that belief. For an example of this, look up "vaccines autism": As of this writing, while most of the top results say "no, vaccines do not cause autism", 2 support the now thoroughly discredited idea. And those 2 start off by announcing that the CDC and doctors and all the others are lying, which means that a parent who's decided that vaccines cause autism because Jenny McCarthy is hot will focus on that link.
And of course, a lot of very important lies cannot be settled by Google: "Put in this extra time, that will reflect well in your next performance review", "That's your baby", "I saw him change lanes unsafely, pulled him over, and then smelled pot in the vehicle", "I can't contribute to child support or alimony", "This stock is ready to go gangbusters and become the next Google", and so forth. They're all about the specific situation, and Google has no information readily available that can prove or disprove any of them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday July 10 2015, @02:29PM
Yes indeed, so very many issues have no definitive right or wrong, how would this program cope with shades of grey.
BTW, Donner Party? Phhhht, Vote Cthulhu/Dagon 2016, why vote for the lesser of two evils? (-:
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.