Lie-detection AI could provoke people into making careless accusations, researchers warn

Although people lie a lot, they typically refrain from accusing others of lying because of social norms around making false accusations and being polite. But artificial intelligence could soon shake up the rules. Researchers demonstrate that people are much more likely to accuse others of lying when an AI makes an accusation. The finding provided insights into the social implications of using AI systems for lie detection, which could inform policymakers when implementing similar technologies.

Human society has long operated based on the truth-default theory, which explains that people generally assume what they hear is true. Because of this tendency to trust others, humans are terrible at detecting lies. Previous research has shown that people perform no better than chance when trying to detect lies.

Next, the team recruited more than 2,000 people to be the judges who would read a statement and decide if it is true or false. The researchers divided the participants into four groups --"baseline,""forced,""blocked," and"choice." In the forced group where participants were given an AI prediction regardless of whether they wanted it, over a third of participants accused the statements of being false. The rate is significantly higher than both the baseline and blocked groups that received no AI predictions.

"It shows that once people have such an algorithm on hand, they would rely on it and maybe change their behaviors. If the algorithm calls something a lie, people are willing to jump on that. This is quite alarming, and it shows we should be really careful with this technology," Köbis says. AI is known for making frequent mistakes and reinforcing biases. Given the findings, Köbis suggests that policymakers should reconsider using the technology on important and sensitive matters like granting asylum at the borders.

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Lie-detection AI could provoke people into making careless accusations, researchers warnAlthough people lie a lot, they typically refrain from accusing others of lying because of social norms around making false accusations and being polite. But artificial intelligence (AI) could soon shake up the rules.
Source: physorg_com - 🏆 388. / 55 Read more »