“Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a machine that could tell you whether someone was telling the truth? It would, of course, be really useful – but more than that, it would represent the ultimate triumph of technology. The utterly private world of our consciousness would be private, and sacred, no more.
Given how fascinating the idea is, then, it’s no surprise that there have been plenty of attempts to design technological lie detectors, and no shortage of people willing to pay for the chance to use them. All of them have worked, in theory. But that doesn’t mean they work.
A group of Scottish neuroscientists recently warned against the seductions of the latest approach – the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect deception. A number of commercial enterprises, such as the US-based No Lie MRI now offer fMRI lie detection, and fMRI evidence has been submitted to courts of law in the US several times, although it has never yet been accepted as admissible evidence.
The judge’s conservativism is well placed. To be sure, fMRI is an incredible technology. Scientists use it to probe the workings of the brain, and doctors use it to work out which parts of the brain do what, so they can avoid damaging the important bits during brain surgery. But it’s just not capable of detecting lies with the kind of certainty that could stand up in court. ”
Read more at The Guardian
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Shouldn’t it be public not private in the first paragraph?
it shouldn’t… the “no more” means they become opposite to private or sacred. Therefore, conscioucness becomes not sacred and not private, which is consistent with the article’s message.
why do we need a machine? doesnt our nose just grow when we lie?
What if your whole system on the inside is not based on what you yourself truely think/see? If you so to speak hang in your body .. do stuff like everybody but never adapted to it .. can you fool a machine in such a way?