Pentagon seeks $30.3m for an AI lie detector to vet its staff – The Next Web
A Pentagon budget request seeks $30.3m over five years for Polygraph Next, an AI lie detector that reads the body from afar. Experts told MIT Technology Review that AI adds uncertainty to a weak test.
The Pentagon, headquarters of the US Department of Defense, in Arlington, Virginia
The Pentagon wants $30.3m over five years to build an AI lie detector that reads the body without touching it. The programme, called Polygraph+ or Polygraph Next, appears in the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s 2027 budget request.
Inside Defense first reported the plan. MIT Technology Review’s Amit Katwala asked experts whether it could work. The agency, known as DCSA, runs background checks for the federal government. It did not respond to MIT Technology Review’s request for details.
DCSA asks for $6.42m in 2027, then between $5.65m and $6.45m a year up to 2031. Congress has not yet approved the request.
The programme aims to “modernize federal polygraph and credibility assessment technologies”, the budget document says. It lists “standoff sensing”, or taking physical readings from a person without attaching a device, along with AI and machine learning scoring, automated scoring and decision aids.
The tools would be used to vet staff and for “insider threat detection”. DCSA also plans cloud storage and data analysis tools to refine the software.
Under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon has turned more often to polygraph tests to find the sources of leaks to the press, MIT Technology Review reported. In September, The New York Times reported that about 50 officers on the Joint Staff had been tested.
The Pentagon has tested this kind of technology before. In 2023, its Defense Innovation Unit picked two companies to build prototypes. Presage Technologies says it can measure heart and breathing rates with ordinary cameras. Altec Research’s prototype tracks head movement, facial skin temperature and pore activity.
A polygraph does not detect lies. It records breathing, pulse, blood pressure and sweat, and an examiner reads the changes. In 2003, the US National Research Council called the evidence for its accuracy “weak at best”.
The American Polygraph Association says the test is 80% to 94% accurate. At that level, a screening programme could still produce many errors. The Pentagon employs 2.8 million people, MIT Technology Review noted.
Kyri Kotsoglou, a legal scholar at Northumbria University in the UK, calls adding AI to the polygraph “the worst of both worlds”. It adds uncertainty on top of invalidity, Kotsoglou told MIT Technology Review.
“Even if you have all the records in the world from polygraph tests, you don’t know whether those polygraph tests are right or not,” Marion Oswald, a law professor who has written with Kotsoglou, told MIT Technology Review.
Sophie van der Zee, who studies deception at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said AI could combine several measures into one score that is harder to game.
“There is still no Pinocchio’s nose,” van der Zee told MIT Technology Review.
Earlier AI lie detectors have not lasted, MIT Technology Review reported. The EU funded iBorderCtrl, a border pilot built on a system that scored deception from video. It faded away, like the US AVATAR border project.
Other tools that use AI to read people are already in use, from AI voice analysis of US prison calls to facial recognition alerts in UK shops and AI camera searches by US police.
I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, and change. I write about startups, venture capital, digital policy, and Europe ecosystem, with an eye on the larger story beneath them: who gets to build the future, who profits from it, and how Europe is learning to speak in a louder voice of its own. Before moving into senior editorial leadership, I’ve built my career for over +10 years across journalism, storytelling, content strategy, SEO, and digital publishing, with experience in SaaS, hospitality, art, and culture.
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