Pentagon seeks $30 million for AI lie detector program

The briefing

The Pentagon is asking for $30.3 million over five years to build a better lie detector. The program, called Polygraph+ or Polygraph Next, would pair machine scored analysis with remote sensors that read a subject's physiology from a distance, with nothing attached to the person. The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency would run it, using the technology to screen job candidates and catch insider threats.

The request comes as the Pentagon has been using polygraph examinations to chase press leaks, with about 50 Joint Staff officers reportedly tested after reporting on shrinking weapons stockpiles. Congress has not approved the funding.

Early versions already exist. The Defense Innovation Unit has funded prototypes including one from Presage Technologies that reads heart and breathing rates through a camera, and another from Altec Research that watches head movement, shifts in skin temperature, and pore activity. Whether any of it actually works is the open question. A 2003 National Research Council review judged the evidence for polygraph screening 'weak at best,' and courts rarely admit the results.

Why it matters

Lie detection carries a century of credibility problems that software cannot obviously fix. Polygraphs track stress responses, not lies, and screening millions of people with an imperfect instrument generates thousands of false alarms. The experts are unimpressed. Legal scholar Kyri Kotsoglou calls the AI polygraph pairing 'the worst of both worlds,' stacking new uncertainty onto old invalidity. Researcher Sophie van der Zee is blunter about the cat and mouse problem: 'If you know how it works, you can beat it.' As she puts it, 'There is still no Pinocchio's nose.'

The sharper worry is how the machine gets used. Professor Marion Oswald argues the polygraph's real power is intimidation: 'being used as a threat, to intimidate and force people to confess to things, as opposed to anything that's actually getting valid information.' Across a potential screening pool of 2.8 million Defense Department employees, a test that errs a small fraction of the time still errs against an enormous number of people.

Key details

• $30.3 million over five years for 'Polygraph+' in a DoD budget request; Congress has not approved it.
• Machine scored analysis plus standoff sensing: physiological readings with nothing attached to the subject.
• To be run by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, for screening candidates and catching insider threats.
• DIU prototypes: Presage reads heart and breathing rates through a camera; Altec watches head movement, skin temperature shifts, and pore activity.
• 2003 National Research Council review judged polygraph evidence 'weak at best'; courts rarely admit the results.
• About 50 Joint Staff officers reportedly tested amid a Pentagon hunt for press leaks.