Developed by University of Arizona researchers in collaboration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the computer is known as the Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-Time — or AVATAR — kiosk.
It uses sensors to screen passengers for unusual physiological responses to questioning — which can indicate a subject is lying…
The kiosk is being trialled at Dennis DeConcini Port in Nogales, Arizona — a checkpoint on the U.S.-Mexico border — as a way of processing passengers looking to sign up to CBP’s “Trusted Traveler” program. The program allows travelers pre-approved as “low-risk” to be fast-tracked through security processes.
Applicants for the program must undergo an interview and biometric fingerprinting to be eligible for the program — both of which can be performed by the AVATAR kiosk…
Their answers are monitored, with any unusual physiological responses passed on to “a human field agent” who then subjects them to “a more careful interview process,” said CBP spokesman Bill Brooks…
Brooks said the project was still in the early phase of field testing, and participating in the AVATAR interview process was entirely voluntary at this stage.
But if successful, the initiative could be rolled out in other parts of CBP’s operations. Derrick said it was hoped that, as well as providing better detection of suspicious behavior, the AVATAR kiosk would prove to be “a really important time and money saving tool.”
And you WILL answer the machine’s questions or become a suspect.
In order to be truly awesome, it needs to display an image of The Anointed One!.
The King wants it, so we must enable!.
And who’s that? Max Headroom?!
(Anyone in their 40’s or better might know who that is.)
monkey + typewriter = In order to be truly awesome, it needs to display an image of The Anointed One!.
The King wants it, so we must enable!.
Joan, are you Mr. Dvorak’s wife?
Again technological answer to human issue. Same as metal detectors, scanners, Xrays,… bad, determined people will find a way to cheat it while general public will suffer from its mistakes without a proper
Humans should do this work. We have loads of highly trained military personnel returning from wars and lingering unemployed. Their skills provide excellent base for the real human work done with this purpose. Instead, money and effort is spent on dumb (no matter what creators of it say) tech’. Reminds me of NASA spending millions to develop pen capable of writing in Space vs. Russians who used pencil.
No argument with your “technology to replace humans” statement in this case, but the space pen vs. pencil thingy is not true. http://snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
There are legitimate times where technology can replace humans (moving things, lifting things, etc). Face-to-face interaction and interrogation is not one of them. Thousands of military personnel HAVE been trained in how to read people – @dusanmal has a brilliant answer to “what do we do with trained military personnel? and “how do we get enough trained personnel to handle customs interrogations?” – offer the positions to trained military personnel!
Not so sure. I can recall reading studies that show that lots of people that think they know how to read people actually do a piss poor job of it.
Classic example is if they don’t look at you they are liars. The truth is if they they fear you or don’t trust you they will most likely want to look away. If they don’t fear you or maybe even want to challenge you they will you look you straight in the eye. They may even look at you intently trying to read your response to their lies so they know what to say next time.
I remember reading that American Indians and European-descended settlers had opposite ways of responding to each other. Indians looked down or to the side as a matter of respect which was seen by whites as a sign of deceit. Meanwhile whites looked directly at someone as a sign of respect or honesty while the same was seen by the Indians as aggressive or threatening.
Also, various hand gestures mean wildly different things in different countries. Our “ok” can be a serious insult in some places. Lots of other such social behaviors and conventions are hardly standard.
I can’t believe that people still believe that myth about the NASA pen : (
I actually bought a “space pen” about two decades ago, for use in my vehicle for a petrol log, because we get cold winters and hot summers and the pen was supposed to work in harsh environments.
Piece of crap, a 25c Bic worked better.
If the computer says your lying, your lying. Computers don’t lie. There no need for appeal, recourse or reconsideration. The computer dosn’t lie!
No need for a judge to intervine, because computers don’t lie.
In fact, the plan is to replace Judges in our court system with the AVATAR as a front end to jep.rdy/wats.n computer.
Imagine the Tax Payers cost saving, since software is allways cheaper and more reliable then people!
They are just trying this on the boarder first.
What makes the creators ‘creeps’? I thought this site liked technology.
If you take the audiovisual stuff out of this site you are left with dork.org.
with a little more work this joke could be awesome … 🙂
I always lie to avatars.
And I almost always lie on blog sites! 😀
Bet this tech doesn;t catch any turncoat spies in the FBI and CIA, either. Some of the most infamous US spies ever caught, always passed their Polygraph tests. Or knew how to weasel out of it. This Virtual Agent is just a more smoke and mirrors version of a Polygraph. Possibly even less accurate. If that’s the right word for a real Polygraph machine. It’s not measuring respiration and blood pressure. Just facial expressions. And possibly vocal tremors. NONE of which any of these parameter have been scientifically proven to be capable of detecting patterns of deceit. But supposedly the aggregate of several of these dubious measurements, makes up for the total unreliability of one or two of them. Which is just more pseudo-scientific baloney, to fool the public and easily intimidated.
This Virtual Agent is likely just programmed with racial profiling software. And its end users are just pretending that it’s not doing that, since it’s not a human being. So it can’t be prejudice. Ha! Don’t believe it.
At least two types of people are known, who can pass US Polygraph tests, Psychopaths and those who are trained to pass. Yes, most people can be trained to pass.
That said, this AVATAR is looking for biometric markers associated with lying. There are various biometric markers. This looks like it relies on camera systems.
These cameras can look for eye dilatation responses to questions, answers or breathing changes. They may be using IR cameras that can see blushes or blood flow changes. The AVATAR may ask you to hold something so they can track skin galvanic changes.
The typical method is for a authority figure to create a theater of fear about any lying by the interviewee, by playing up the 100% certainty the system catches all lies and how bad the consequences will be for lyers. Before the interview, a authority figure will ask and watch your response to the question; if you lie, do you believe the system will catch you in a lie?
Remember cops are given extensive training and encouraged to perfect themselves in the theater of lying. The Supreme Court’s decision in Connick v. Thompson gives complete license to government officials to knowingly lie, fabricate or withhold evidence.
Cops are trained to be the “actors” in this fear theater. Then the polygrapher (the AVATAR in this case) will ask the interviewee control questions, like are you male or female (questions where the answer is known with 100% certainty).
People have been known to find innocuous ways to induce slight pain during control question. Some people train themselves to believe they are lying when telling the truth.
The interviewee is only allowed yes and no answers. You are then asked probing question of interest and the sensor readouts are compared to the control questions.
The system works best when you believe the system is an infallible lie detector and this is also how the system is beaten.
Oh no, some people can pass a lie detector, therefore a lie detector never works? Then why are police agencies around the country using lie detectors? Perhaps you should inform them that they are wasting their money.
Your statement “Oh no, some people can pass a lie detector, therefore a lie detector never works?”
Is bogus on its face, “some people” doesn’t equal “never works”.
If you had said, “all people”, then at least; what you wrote would be logical, but still wrong!
And, by the way; police already know some lying people can easily pass polygraphs. Just to avoid you your self confusion, notice I said “some”.
I’ll give you a pass since the new blog format sucks, but I wasn’t responding to you.
Yes, NewformatSux, the new blog format does suck on several levels. I did improve some from it’s original inception, but improvements have stagnated or just stopped.
It’s a shame, computers where meant to be an efficiency multiplier in that one or a small group of people would spend time developing code that would save people small to lots of time, with the time saved multiplied by 1000s of users. Instead coders are more concerned about saving themselves time and don’t mind wasting users small to large amounts of time, with the time lost multiplied by 1000s of users.
Hows does a politician get past this guy?
The best they could do was a Ben Affleck/Paul Rudd fusion with a bad afro? Geez.
Unless this AVATAR can do a TSA power grope, it will never be as good as an aroused agent!
At least there is one thing people are better then computers at!
I remember the “we can identify people because of their walk” system that was impressive… right up until some smart arsed tester put a stone in his shoe and suddenly because “invisible”.
You should also be required to recite the pledge of allegiance and give a DNA sample. GOD WILLS IT!
Just FYI facial recognition tech is the second most reliable lie detection method to date. Just google microexpressions for more infos . These are facial muscle responses so tiny & fast that these are not visible/noticeable to the naked eye even if if you concentrate really hard to spot them. Only when you watch the recording of a face in super slow motion it’s suddenly plain as daylight. Of course psychopath and people who really believe in their own lies (through numerous repetition of the lie and faded memory of the actual event) can still pass this test.
The most reliable method to date and in use at some agencies already is scanning of brain activity. As an example a suspect is shown a photograph of a location / person / weapon etc. and the brain scanner can show if the brain areas for new/unknown information are accessed or brain region for past experiences. So basically you can see if this is new information to you or if you seen the depicted item/person before. It is impossible to cheat this test, even for a psychopath.