Page 50 - TruthAboutLyingFinal

The Truth About Lying
“Latin,” she said. “Truthful. Truth-teller. Close enough.” Henry almost laughed.
The name was too clean for what it was.
“How accurate?” he asked.
Jinji hesitated.
“Ninety-three percent in controlled tests.” “And the other seven?”
Her face changed.
“That’s why you’re here.”
“No. That’s exactly why I should leave.” She closed the laptop halfway.
“Three years ago, I built a deception-detection tool for a defense contractor. It flagged a terrified man as lying. He had a heart condition. They were interrogating him. The system read fear and called it deception.”
Henry remembered her phone call. “He died,” he said.
“Yes.”
Jinji’s voice stayed level, but only just.
“People trusted the number because the number looked cleaner than cruelty. That’s what machines do. They let people pretend a decision came from somewhere else.”
“Then why build this?” Vincent asked.
“Because worse versions are coming,” she said. “Government versions. corporate versions. secret versions. Versions built by people who won’t invite a priest and a liar into the room to tell them no.”
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