Discover Magazine has a brief but interesting interview with ex-NSA psychologist Eric Haseltine, who directed research into interrogation and lie detection.
He discusses the use of new technologies that measure body and brain function – i.e. the still not-yet-very-good ‘brain scan lie detectors’ – but also talks about the skills humans need to be able to pick up when someone is trying to deceive them.
Interestingly, he cites the development of human skills as where the biggest advances are likely to be made in the future:
What is the hottest area today in deception detection?
Human lie detectors. I think the low-tech training of humans to be better interpreters of information is where the most productive work is going to be. The reason being that you can either train a human to do it or train a computer to do it, and human brains are still much better computers than computers are.
Link to Discover Magazine interview with Haseltine.
Link to New Yorker article on the shortcomings of ‘brain scan lie detection’.
Link to past interview with Haseltine on US national security.
Mind Hacks 