[extropy-chat] truth machine

[Jeff Davis]

Extropes,

Perhaps you will recall Halperin's "Truth Machine".  Science fiction,
right?  Science fiction, as in nerd boy vaporware.  As in ***just***
science fiction.

I haven't read "The Truth Machine", but I'd heard about it, on this
list, (back when Halperin was coming out with "The First Immortal").
Heard that it depicted a world radically transformed by a robust
capability to detect lying and discern the truth.

Fast forward five or six years.

I was reading this article:

U.S. says terror suspect shouldn't talk to civilian lawyer

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-04-interrogation_x.htm

The first paragraph states:

"A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should
not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush
administration argues, because he could reveal the agency's closely
guarded interrogation techniques."

Which made me think back to this article which I read about two years ago:

MRI lie detector may tell fact from fiction
http://www.temple.edu/temple_times/2-10-05/lies.html

So a year after the announcement of the research, an application comes
to market:

Brain Scan Lie Detectors Come To Market
http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/003548.html

>From which I offer a couple of excerpts:

Two companies plan to market the first lie-detecting devices that use
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and say the new tests can spot liars
with 90% accuracy.
Both rely in part on recent research funded by the federal government
aimed at producing a foolproof method of detecting deception.

Lie detection will become a huge market. It will change personal
relationships, marriages, the criminal justice system (I love tools
that can exonerate the innocent), the hunt for terrorists, and raise
honesty in business dealings.

                         *******************************************

So I'm wondering -- assuming really -- is the CIA is using this tech
in its interrogation protocol?

Brave new world.

-- 
Best, Jeff Davis

               "Always tell the truth.  You'll please some
                        people, and astonish the rest."
                                                       Mark Twain