
An AI Lie Detector Is Going to Start Questioning Travelers in the EU - atlasunshrugged
https://gizmodo.com/an-ai-lie-detector-is-going-to-start-questioning-travel-1830126881
======
deft
Why are lie detectors legal and why were they ever used for anything? We know
they don't work. And we know this one won't work any better, because now
they've just put the work of sentiment analysis on "AI" vs. a "trained
expert".

~~~
darawk
Why do you think these won't work? I would think they have a dataset that
they're validating them on if they're calling it "AI".

I think it's unlikely that they'll be perfect, but they may very well be good
enough to filter people for further, more intensive screening.

~~~
dagw
_I would think they have a dataset that they 're validating them on if they're
calling it "AI"._

You obviously don't work for IBM :)

A skilled IBM Watson sales consultant as capable of selling simple linear
regressions as Big Data AI!

~~~
bryanrasmussen
You know with a big enough corpus of successful sales I think we should be
able to train our Sales-Bot to sell simple linear regressions as Big Data AI!

~~~
stochastic_monk
I wish that machine learning wasn’t being mislabeled as AI. It’s pattern
recognition, not intelligence.

~~~
dagw
_It’s pattern recognition, not intelligence._

While I don't disagree that "AI" as a term is being abused, the distinction
you're making seems very much a philosophical one.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
Not to put a fine point on it, but "the team at iBorderCtrl" are charlatans.

Their system is supposed to detect lying from facial expressions. The only
kind of "science" purporting to back this possibility is the work of the
psychologist, Paul Ekman, which is based on flimsy evidence at best. A
gigantic hint that this "research" is a bunch of hooey is his claim to have
identified 29 "wizzards of deception detection" [1]- in very, very literal
terms those are people with the magickal power to tell when someone is lying
just by looking at their face (and magickally perceiving revealing facial
expressions, subconsciously).

The iBorderCtrl system might indeed be replaced by a wizzard, or, why not be
more inclusive, a witch, with a magick wand pointed to the traveller, while
questions are being asked of them. If the traveller is telling the truth, the
wand will jump up, if they're lying it will dive down. The witch is not moving
the wand! She's only channeling the MAGICK!

The same magick being channelled by this revolting misuse of technology for
the most odious purpose imaginable. It is not a coincidence that this
"prototype" is being deployed in Hungary, the country in the EU that has
embraced populist, xenophobic tendencies as no other, having elected a master
of the craft, Viktor Orbán, as a prime minister and head of government.

This is such utter, utter bullshit. I cannot believe that the Commission
agreed to all this. What the fucking fuck.

___________

[1]
[http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/o...](http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/on_lie_detection_wizards..pdf)

~~~
mschuster91
> I cannot believe that the Commission agreed to all this.

I can. I mean, the driving forces in the EU got _extremely_ xenophobic. Italy
is ruled by the fascist Salvini, the PiS in Poland are not far behind Orban,
the UK government has been xenophobic for decades, France suffers from
xenophobia too (after the terror attacks, though) and our own Horst Seehofer
risked collapsing the German government over (literally) 0 migrants (per
[https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/seehofers-deal-
zahl...](https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/seehofers-deal-zahlen-der-
bundesregierung-zeigen-wie-nutzlos-das-fluechtlings-abkommen-mit-spanien-
ist_id_9399400.html))...

What are human rights, what is democracy worth, when there is no one left to
enforce them? The EU won't do shit against Hungary, Poland or Italy (as there
is a 100% consensus required!), the US under Trump are going isolationist and
trampling on human rights wherever they can, and the UN Security Council is
powerless against the stuff that Russia, China, Saudi-Arabia etc. do because
there's always a veto power that bails out their "friends".

------
misiti3780
7 years ago, I worked on a government contract (not S,TS) trying to build a
lie detector using computer vision and the research done by Paul Ekman (from
the book Blink). After a few years of building models, we determined that it
would be impossible to build an effective detector. I wonder if the research
has changed.

~~~
sebazzz
Perhaps they use machine learning for this. Was that used in your project?

~~~
levythe
Ah, yes, the magical, "Machine Learning works even when there is no proper way
to determine the hygiene of the training data," argument.

~~~
908087
Throw some "cloud blockchain" in the mix and it should be ready for immediate
global deployment. I can almost taste the synergy.

~~~
ticmasta
OT: a friend & former coworker and I have a pact that's been running for a
long time: whenever you hear the word "synergy" you are _required_ to make a
hand gesture sliding your index finger on one hand into a ring formed by the
other hand.

It's crass and juvenile and totally inappropriate but after more than ten
years it's also second nature and still represents the gist of what the
synergizer's plans are likely to accomplish.

------
atupis
"iBorderCtrl team, said that they are “quite confident” they can bring the
accuracy rate up to 85 percent."

Magical 85 percent accuracy. so it is basically toy.

~~~
captainbland
So what like one in six or seven people will be incorrectly flagged as lying?
That's just silly, it'd be a total circus trying to use it.

~~~
FabHK
Well, in particular, suppose 1 out of 100 people is lying at the border. Send
10k people over the border, 100 are lying, 9900 aren't.

With 85% accuracy, 85 of liars are flagged as lying (correctly), and 15% x
9900 = 1485 of non-liars are flagged as lying (incorrectly).

Thus, a bit more than 5% of people flagged as lying are actually lying, while
_nearly 95% of people flagged are innocent_. This is not even taking into
account the possibility that hardened criminals might be less nervous than
somewhat anxious normal people.

Enjoy your border crossings, everyone.

EDIT: fix italics

EDIT to add: And that's _after_ they get the accuracy up to 85%. And unless
accuracy is defined somewhat differently.

~~~
cporios
> With 85% accuracy, 85 of liars are flagged as lying (correctly), [...]

This is not what accuracy means.

85% accuracy just means that 85% of all the decisions the system makes are
correct. A system in such a setting, where a single false negative matters a
lot more than a single false positive (which would simply be handed over to a
human for further investigation) would necessarily be tuned for extremely high
recall at the cost of precision. In other words, it would often flag innocent
people for further investigation (as you've said), but it would almost never
clear people that should've been flagged.

~~~
FabHK
Ah, yes, you're right. Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision#In_bina...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision#In_binary_classification)

~~~
FabHK
Ah, well, yes, looks like I was right, too, though.

Unless I'm mistaken (and that's possible, I've changed my opinion twice now),
my example outlined above is

\- conceivable, and

\- has 85% accuracy (85 people correctly identified as liars, 85% x 9900 =
8415 correctly identified as non-liars, thus a total of 85+8415=8500 of 10k
total "accurately" identified), and

\- still only 5% or 6% of flagged liars are actual liars.

EDIT to add:

And if the system is tweaked as you suggest, to very rarely fail to flag a
liar:

\- suppose it correctly flags all 100 liars as liars

\- suppose accuracy is still 85%, thus 8500 people in total classified
correctly

\- thus 8400 non-liars flagged correctly, and the remaining 1500 non-liars
flagged incorrectly

Now still only 6.25% (100 of 1600) of people flagged as liars are actually
liars. Thus, even with the tuning you suggest, this remains.

(Note to self: 1. think 2. write)

~~~
CardenB
FWIW, I think you are totally correct if you take accuracy at face value.

You really have to compare precision and recall values to know if the accuracy
statement holds true. You could have have 100% precision and low recall and
still have 85% accuracy (meaning you could never flag someone as lying and be
wrong while missing a bunch of liars and still have 85% accuracy).

but if everything is totally evenly distributed, then 85% accuracy means 85%
accuracy and your first statement is correct.

The real issue is that accuracy is only one piece of the puzzle.

------
StavrosK
What the hell? This is completely unacceptable, who voted this in? I'm not so
much concerned about this system, which is a complete joke and is never going
to work, as much as I am concerned by the fact that some people thought this
was acceptable enough to actually deploy.

~~~
isostatic
Looks like the commission is running this as a pilot.

As always your contact will be via your MEP, who appoints the commission
president (based on the fact the EPP was the largest party in 2014 and Junker
was the presidential candidate of that party)

~~~
antpls
And also, don't forget to register yourself on the voter lists for the EU's
2019 election!

The countries in which the pilot takes place were mainly EPP (odd
correlation...?)

By the way, direct links to newpress release and project page, which lists
involved countries :

\-
[http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?artid...](http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?artid=49726)

\-
[https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/202703_en.html](https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/202703_en.html)

------
qwerty456127
This is outrageous. I always feel extremely anxious (and in such a case I
would also feel angry) and try to imitate I'm not by playing Mr. Spock + smile
when passing border (or any other) checks although I'm neither a smuggler nor
a terrorist (but have some impostor syndrome). Such a device will probably
notice this and put me in problems.

~~~
jobigoud
It also has a built-in bias: the more you are falsely accused, the more
stressed you become when you are treated as a suspect.

~~~
DoctorOetker
that's not bias, that's a self-fullfilling-prophecy runaway effect, even
worse!

------
leephillips
As if getting through an airport isn't bad enough, now in these locations we
will have to submit to a pseudoscientific farce. (Polygraphs, that record more
detailed physiological data, in concert with a human interpreter, fail to
"detect deceit". Clearly this system, which the article says was tested on 30
people before deployment, will produce random results.)

------
coldcode
If we could make politicians have to pass an AI lie detector we build first,
then I am for this. Firstly this will never happen, and secondly if for some
reason it did we would then likely have no politicians.

~~~
Symmetry
That might inadvertently select for politicians who believe what the voters
want to hear over those who lie but know its a lie. Since the later want to
get re-elected they'll quietly abandon the good-sounding-but-horrible plans
they talked about to get into office but the former will actually try to carry
them out.

------
travelbuffoon
Significant note: this appears to be a customs screening, not immigration
screening.

Which makes perfect sense since it's extremely hard for customs agents to
actually catch smugglers. (Compared to immigration screening which is largely
based on hard criteria which human agents evaluate with much less leeway.)

The bigger question is whether it's effective - but anything is likely to be
more effective than customs agents selecting people to search based on gut
feeling.

------
antpls
"which cost the EU a little more than $5 million"

Well, I didn't know my taxes were used to build such systems. It would have
been _really_ more acceptable if they sold the system as a simple chat bot
that records what you says, in case you are involved in a case later. But the
"lie detector" part is scary and this is the typical instance that Elon Musk
warned against.

I don't understand how academics accepted to work on that.

------
atlasunshrugged
I wonder what the effect on the human border agents will be if this system is
popularized - will it be something like "self-driving" cars where people start
falling asleep at the wheel even though the tech isn't there yet (I suppose in
this scenario it means that people who are lying are seen as telling the truth
and they just get waved by by border control)

------
apo
"Lie detection" is probably just the beginning. Think of what could be done by
combining this system with facial recognition. Deployed widely enough, this
system could build a personalized profile for each individual, mapping
emotional state to times and locations, or more crudely it could be used for
racial profiling.

------
albertgoeswoof
Couldn’t we just use a random number generator instead?

~~~
iguy
Some places do exactly this.

I think the idea was that, with any kind of profiling, it would be easy for
drug gangs to figure out who to use as mules. And with any judgement, they can
pressurise the guy making the call. But a lottery machine everyone can see is
harder to defeat.

------
code4tee
Doesn’t GDPR have a lot to say about the use of algorithms for decision
making? This sort of thing of letting an ‘AI’ decide on its own what kind of
airport experience you’re going to have seems to fly into the face of that.

~~~
lotu
I don't think GDPR would prevent this I read though it for work before it was
implemented I don't recall anything saying algorithms can't make decisions
about people. Our company uses algorithms to decide what ad is displayed to
people, and I'm not recalling anything that would make these diffrent under
the law.

Furthermore, I believe the government has been given broad exceptions from
GDPR for anything related to doing government stuff. This is form of
legitimate interest "processing is necessary for the performance of a task
carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority
vested in the controller;" It is in the public interest the border control
laws be enforced and a manner that is both effective and minimized cost to the
public, also this involves the exercise of official border control authority,
therefore this is acceptable.

(Standard reminder that if you are relying on the advice of a stranger for
legal issues that matter you should get an attorney.)

~~~
mattlondon
I found this:

[https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-
da...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-
protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/rights-related-to-automated-
decision-making-including-profiling/)

It is interesting that there is a comment about explicit consent - I imagine
this will be like the millimeter wave scanners: you can either go in and get
your genitals imaged by some remote voyeur, or if you dont like that then you
can get a thorough strip search by someone in blue gloves. Have a nice day :-)

------
Canada
Just like the evil TSA imaging systems, best thing to do is refuse to
participate.

~~~
kranner
I imagine it will not be optional when it is out of the experimental phase.

~~~
Canada
What can they do? Strap you in front of it like it’s clockwork orange? You can
refuse to respond to it. Cover your face with your hand and say “operator
operator operator” or some other nonsense. Say it’s creepy or ridiculous to
talk to such a thing. They will let you go.

~~~
kranner
If it's mandatory if you want to enter the EU (as a non-citizen), I'd guess
they would deny you entry.

~~~
travelbuffoon
Nope. It's for customs, not immigration. You're already in the country, they
just need to figure out whether they need to search your bags for contraband.

~~~
stale2002
So then if you refuse to answer they will just search your bags.

~~~
toweringgoat
Customs agents are supposed to do that. How else do you think smuggling gets
stopped? It's pretty much universal that your belongings can be searched (then
there are some countries expand that to searching digital data, but that's a
bit of a perversion).

~~~
stale2002
This is being used by literal customs agents.

That's the point. If you refuse then they do a thorough search.

If you answer suspiciously, or refuse to answer, then you get the full search.

This is similar to how you can refuse body scans at the airport, but if you do
then you get the full pat down search.

------
llalie92
There's a lot of skepticism in this thread. I've actually researched this a
bit and there is research suggesting AI-based lie detection to be possible. It
will need a multimodal approach where it's more than just video images though.

Also, the use case of border control is a great application. There's a lot of
misunderstanding in this thread. The AI screening is just a first screening,
and if someone fails that, then they go to a human. So moderate false positive
rates are acceptable.

The commentators on this thread generally make a few mistakes: assuming lie
detectors won't work because polygraphs don't work, assuming the border
control use case needs to be perfect or not have false positives (it doesn't),
assuming Paul Ekman's microexpressions are all that iBorderCtrl is basing
their research on (I agree Ekman's research is questionable, and I don't know
what exactly iBorderCtrl is doing, but it seems highly likely they're doing
more than just looking for microexpressions), assuming racist intent or that
it'll just flag non-Europeans as liars.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Yes, of course there is skepticism in the thread. The claim being made is
completely ridiculous.

I would be very surprised if the "research suggesting AI-based lie detection
to be possible" that you mention is from anyone who has any sort of reputation
to protect. Machine learning scientists, the vast majority of, would not touch
such obvious pseudo-scientific claptrap with a ten-foot pole. It's the kind of
thing that tarnishes one's reputation and never washes off. And rightly so.

I would not welcome, but grudingly accept, your references to the contrary.

Also, if iBorderCtrl are not using Eckman's work, then what kind of
theoretical framework are they basing their work on? Why is it "highlly likely
they're doing more than just looking for microexpressions"? Where is all the
science of detecting lies from looking at peoples' faces?

And if they're not basing their work on someone's research, then what are they
basing it on?

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Well, it turns out, they are using microexpressions - and nothing else:

 _The IBORDERCTRL system has been set up so that travellers will use an online
application to upload pictures of their passport, visa and proof of funds,
then use a webcam to answer questions from a computer-animated border guard,
personalised to the traveller’s gender, ethnicity and language. The unique
approach to ‘deception detection’ analyses the micro-expressions of travellers
to figure out if the interviewee is lying._

From the Commision's website, posted here by another user:

[http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?artid...](http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?artid=49726)

------
jillesvangurp
I always feel a bit sorry for the rubber stamp monkeys sitting at the border
control in the US. They are so fucked at so many levels that isn't funny any
more. For starters, their job is purely symbolic as it is unlikely anyone that
shouldn't be there would get that far: it would imply multiple levels of
failure in several agencies: you traveled internationally and were profiled,
checked, and triple checked before you even arrived at your gate. They are
bureaucratic ass coverage with little practical real life value. What little
value there is has more to do with controlling migration than any security.

Domestically, many airlines already have automated checkins (including luggage
dropoff in some places), automated boarding, and in some places automated
passport checks at immigration. The last human hurdle is security screening,
which is mostly theater at this point.

So, automated screening of travelers at the beginning of their journey makes a
lot of sense. Mostly it's just confirming the obvious: are they who they claim
they are (i.e. does the person showing up match the automated profile
available already, are there any red flags warranting extra attention) and are
they carrying anything they should not be carrying. Like AI already
outperforming physicians in the job of scanning medical images for anomalies,
surely state of the art luggage scanners are also outperforming humans
(probably by magnitudes). Add to that some screening for clear markers that
somebody's behavior is a bit off and you have basically automated away
security staff likely to miss those signals because they are human beings that
get tired, stressed, bored, distracted, biased, etc.

So the combined checks of identity, profiling, automated luggage scans and
escalation to humans in case of any doubt should be vastly more efficient. The
default case should be zero humans involved with the whole process. When it
escalates, you still get the humans in the loop that are then a lot more
effective because they already know there were some red flags.

This stuff will initially perform quite poorly probably. But it will still be
worth it in identifying the "definitely not lying, don't waste your time on
this" category of travelers.

~~~
dr_teh
" But it will still be worth it in identifying the "definitely not lying,
don't waste your time on this" category of travelers."

That is absolutely not how any of this works, at all.

------
varjag
Anyone who ever dealt with a chat bot in customer support should be alarmed by
this.

------
qwerty456127
In general respect to human rights and privacy has always seemed an important
part of the EU ideology. I just hope this a purely local initiative and the
central EU government is going to intervene and stop this.

------
contravariant
>The virtual agent is reportedly customized according to the traveler’s
gender, ethnicity, and language.

That all just seems to be fancy way of saying it's discriminatory and racist.

~~~
lucb1e
In that case a system programmed not to recommend vaginal checkups to men is
sexist? I can totally imagine that different genders lie differently, and if
it turns out that they don't (or that different ethnicities don't or
whatever), great, one model fewer to maintain right?

------
badosu
Seems like the perfect strawman for recording face recognition data use in
surveillance...

------
tinus_hn
Border checkpoints in the Schengen zone, which is most of the EU, are
forbidden.

~~~
logifail
Reality check: tell that to the German border police who are standing on the
A93 motorway at Kiefersfelden eyeballing every single driver entering Germany
from Austria.

There's more than a whiff of Checkpoint Charlie about the place (portakabins
installed directly on what was the motorway surface, concrete traffic calming
measures, 5 km/h speed limit, armed police, more police sitting in chase car
should anyone decide not to stop, floodlit at night)

I'm sure it's worth it, what with Austria and Germany sharing a fairly long
land border which is more or less completely unsecured. Side roads - of which
there are plenty - don't get checked much either. <rolls eyes>

------
presscast
I wonder what its cost function is. I sure hope it's better than "get people
to say inconsistent things", as I'd expect that to produce a system that is
optimized to trip people up.

------
naijabb
We need the US embassies to use this. I have been denied visas three times
because the interviewers feel I would not return to my home country. If this
AI detector was used, at least they would know I am honest about just visiting
the USA.

~~~
dagw
AI can never be better than the training data you feed it. If videos of your
interviews where used to train on how a 'liar' might behave, it will make the
same mistakes as the human interviewers.

~~~
isostatic
E.g. amazon resume sifting ai

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-
automatio...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-
insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-
women-idUSKCN1MK08G)

------
modzu
OBEY

~~~
modzu
lets spell it out then

[https://obeygiant.com/propaganda/manifesto/](https://obeygiant.com/propaganda/manifesto/)

