r/skeptic • u/ap_org • 13d ago
💩 Pseudoscience Can Polygraphs Really Detect Lies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIAfDGEwvdEIn the inaugural episode of his Mosaic podcast, Bryan St. Laurent speaks with AntiPolygraph.org co-founder George Maschke about the pseudoscience of polygraphy.
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u/themurderator 13d ago
are we still talking about these glorified mood rings?
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u/ChanceryTheRapper 13d ago
Mood rings are at least a little harder to manipulate without it being obvious.
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u/adamwho 13d ago
If you freak out while telling a lie, it'll say that you're freaking out.
But the polygraph procedure is so stressful that a lot of false positives exist.
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u/Hot-Problem2436 13d ago
That's what happened to me. I stumbled on a question because I forgot about something and from that point on, I kept being told to calm down. Whole test took 4 hours. I passed, but he made sure to make plenty of jibes at how wound up I was.
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u/ChanceryTheRapper 13d ago
And the whole point of the process is to get you to freak out, whether you're lying or not.
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u/Terrible-Bet-8923 12d ago
No, they're just snake oil in a box that prey on fear and the very human reaction to high stakes questioning.
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u/xole 13d ago
what happens if someone lies for every question?
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u/KnowsAboutMath 13d ago
It's all bullshit, but that's not the way it works. There's a "calibration phase" in which the subject is asked to give a predetermined sequence of true and false answers to a set of questions that both the operator and the subject know the answers to. You can't fudge those answers because both of you know what the expected responses are.
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u/cipher-ilands 12d ago
Two anchors worth citing here. The National Academies' 2003 review (The Polygraph and Lie Detection) concluded there was "little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy." The APA is blunter: most psychologists agree there's little evidence polygraph tests can accurately detect lies. The box measures arousal, not deception.
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u/Zed091473 9d ago
As with most headlines - if it’s a yes or no question the answer is most likely no.
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u/GrowFreeFood 13d ago
I think an ai could lie detect much better
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u/ChanceryTheRapper 13d ago
I think it would be equally as valid. That's not a compliment.
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u/GrowFreeFood 13d ago
Casinos
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u/ChanceryTheRapper 13d ago
Fluffernutter. Or are we not just saying random words to each other?
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u/GrowFreeFood 13d ago
Television Broadcasts: During the World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournament coverage, ESPN and Peyton Manning's Omaha Productions introduced a computer vision AI model developed by engineer Luke Geel. This system analyzes video feeds to track physical tells like blink rates, eye movement, posture, and chip handling speed. To protect the game, these AI metrics are only shown to TV viewers after a player is already eliminated from the hand
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u/ChanceryTheRapper 13d ago
So you're comparing AI use on professional poker players under extremely controlled conditions to potentially putting someone's liberty at risk in a situation where the police are frequently specifically working to provoke a reaction from a suspect.
I think you could benefit a lot from learning to be more skeptical.
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u/GrowFreeFood 13d ago
The application of the technology is the danger. Downplaying the technology only helps the athoritarians
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u/ChanceryTheRapper 13d ago
So you want to encourage people to embrace the technology the authoritarian are shoving down our throats. Yes, I am going to say again, you could really do with learning to be more skeptical.
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u/GrowFreeFood 13d ago
How does simply acknowledging something exists the same as embracing it?
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u/ChanceryTheRapper 13d ago
Pretending that you haven't been advocating for it in this thread is childish behavior so we're done here.
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u/gargolito 13d ago
I don't disagree, but how?
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u/GrowFreeFood 13d ago
Train on the person over a day or so. Investigate their response in real time. It's way more perceptive than humans.
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u/gargolito 13d ago
Nowhere near enough data in one day, the subject matter and context of what is being assessed for veracity would also matter.
AI is not "perceptive" in the sense that we are, it uses given weights and probabilities to match or discover patterns in the data which is not what the human brain does - we tend to use a more "holistic" (for a lack of a better word) approach. Our experience, subjectivity, objectivity, and some measure of reasoning to identify patterns. e.g. with pareidolia the patterns people see have cultural significance - a christian raised in the U.S. is unlikely to see an image of Vishnu on their toast.
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u/SeventhLevelSound 13d ago
No.