Source

The U.S. intelligence community wants to master the art of BS-detection. But instead of improving on pre-existing methods, like polygraph tests or voice-stress analysis, they want to amplify our own,
intuitive, “pre-conscious human assessment of trustworthiness.”

Iarpa, the intelligence community’s out-there research unit, is behind the effort to overcome even the sneakiest deceivers. Last year, Iarpa held a researchers conference to discuss a little idea they call Trust, short for “Tools for
Recognizing Useful Signals of Trustworthiness.” Now, Iarpa has started
soliciting proposals for the project, which they envision as a
five-year, three-phased overhaul of current deception-detection technology.

Trust will eventually develop sensors and software that help assess trustworthiness, but Iarpa wants to start by determining how to capitalize on our own intuitive abilities. The solicitation notes that
trust is often determined by “the absence of deception or lack of
stress.” That’s how polygraph tests distinguish — sometimes incorrectly
— lies from honesty. Iarpa wants to do away with deception and stress
as surrogates for trustworthiness, and instead develop methods to
evaluate four different elements that could contribute to one’s
(dis)honesty: neural, psychological, physiological and behavioral
signals.

Iarpa wants proposals that address each of the four elements, and describe how they change when someone’s lying — and how a human lie-detector might be able to detect them.

And Iarpa plans to learn about more than just the signals that convey someone’s trustworthiness. The agency also wants to understand “how, when, why, and to what degree humans trust — and assess others as
being trustworthy.” That’ll be the first step towards determining how
Iarpa can harness, then amplify, our own intuitive BS-busting abilities.

Can a Self’s signals be a reliable, valid predictor of an Other’s trustworthiness? Can non-, supra- and/or pre-conscious human assessment of trustworthiness be captured and processed in near
real-time in order to accurately assess whom should and should not be
trusted?

Iarpa wants a lie-detection system that’s dynamic enough to work under diverse conditions, across cultural norms, between genders and over short and long periods of time.

Once the four elements of trustworthiness are determined, Phase I will involve large-scale human experimentation. Iarpa wants proposals for testing plans that are creative and high-risk. In other words,
Iarpa wants test subjects to really sweat before they undergo
evaluation as liars or lie-detectors:

Incentives should be more than just token amounts of money, or compensation for their research time, and might also involve risks/rewards that are not (or at least not solely) monetary but are
meaningful to subjects.

Iarpa’s also hoping to learn from the best. They’re on the lookout for test participants with superhuman detection abilities, who are “capable of detecting and predicting with high accuracy who will, and
who will not, behave in a trustworthy manner.”

And torture laws be damned: The agency is also open to the possibility of “experimental drug[s],” which might offer some valuable assistance in getting tight-lipped test
subjects to open up.

Song Lyrics:

We have reviewed your yellow form
Congratulations! we find you qualified
You have just the right capacity
For putting up with our nonsense
There's just one thing you've got to prove
We know how you must be dishonest and lazy
If you're so desperate
You actually want to work at this place

These days
Blood pressure clamps around your arms
Now don't get nervous when we yell in your face
We know you steal- Just who do you screw?
With what?!
With who?!?
Aren't you a Christian?!?!?
The polygraph-don't make it move
One little twitch, the anvil drops on you
Don't matter if you told the truth
We want your facial egg for our file

Guilty-'til proven innocent
Guilty-It says so on your face
Guilty-When you try to find a place to live or a job that pays
Guilty-Whe you file a complaint against the cop that kicked your face last night
Guilty-It says so on page 3
Guilty-Who'd think a guy like me would plant drugs in your car
Break in your house while you're asleep
Open your mouth, bet your ass you're watched
And it's your word against ours...
Yeah, just because we're hiring you
That don't mean we trust you at all
You'll have to take a test like this
Once or twice EVERY week
We know machines, they make mistakes
Yeah, it's your word against our dead black box
The machine is always right
'Cause we know how it makes you feel so small
Because you're guilty (lie detector)
'Til you're proven innocent these days
No one's innocent these days
'Cause when you're innocent it just don't pay