Ask HN: What happens to society when we have pocket AI lie detectors | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What happens to society when we have pocket AI lie detectors

2 pointsRikNieu7 comments

With the recent news of AI being able to detect diseases and even sexual orientation from photos alone, it got me thinking; how will society be affected when you have apps that can tell with >95% certainty if you're lying?

It doesn't sound like it would be too hard to build, one of you would probably be able to throw something like that together in a very short amount of time, but what will the fallout be?

No more white lies. No more social grace and niceties. No more saving face.

Only brute, blunt honesty...

:edit

I want to expand the range of scenarios a bit; jealous spouses whipping the app out in public the whole time("Do you think she's prettier than me? Do you like him more than me? Do you miss XYZ?").

Children asking their parents who's their favourite. OR asking them if they regret having them. Or asking if dad REALLY is their dad.

What about employers asking if you're bluffing in salary negotiations? Or asking if you worked 100% of your hours. OR if you're looking to move?

Then, there's the legal side - at what level of certainty would courts accept lie detector apps as evidence? Would they?

What if politicians can be caught lying in press conferences in real time, and be called out for it?

> It doesn't sound like it would be too hard to build

Heh, try then. We can't even understand complex sentences yet, much less process things like sarcasm. Even people have issues with that.

The examples you listed are also biased. Not untrue, but the sexual orientation one was based on self-published profile photos which completely changes the context.

Maybe, I'm certainly no machine learning expert. My post was mostly a question on the consequences of having such an app available to the public at large, not so much the actual feasibility of building it in a couple of months.

It's not the question of a couple of months. Such app is not going to exist.

I mean, I'd be happy to speculate for some story ideas. But if you're being serious, then - this is not going to happen. Not from visual, voice, or other external cues. Not in our lifetime either.

> No more social grace and niceties. No more saving face.

I don’t think so. Even without the lie detector we mostly understand when someone is just being polite or trying to save face.

True, but there are scenarios where white lies are still used to deceive, but maybe it's seen as a lesser evil to avoid violent confrontation.

There was an interesting book about 20 years ago on the creation of a perfect lie detector, The Truth Machine by James L. Halperin. It primarily dealt with the screening that would take place throughout your daily activities suck as signing up for day care or a new job when the detector would force everyone to confess any previous crimes.

Sounds interesting, will check it out, thanks!

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