Can you tell is someone is lying? St. Pete company develops AI tool to detect deception
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Have you ever wondered if someone is lying to you? Artificial Intelligence can now help you with that, thanks to a St. Pete-based tech startup called Deceptio.ai.
"I was in sales, direct sales, and I wanted to improve my sales forecast and I'd had some deception training from prior military service," Mark Carson, CEO and Co-founder of Deceptio.ai said. "I bought a book written by a really smart man who's now my business partner named Mark McClish, and he focuses on detecting deception by analyzing written words."
In less than one second, the AI technology analyzes statements pasted into the platform to see if the person behind the statement is being truthful.
Carson said contractions and using the word are good examples of possible deception.
"The concept of statement analysis has been around for almost three decades. It's heavily used by the FBI. So, this is a vetted process for determining the veracity of individual statements. What we have done is we have automated and streamlined that," he said.
After the user puts the statement into Deceptio.ai, they choose the type of statement they want the system to analyze, ranging from crimes against a person to a text message.
Then they click analyze. Anything that falls under 85 percent is considered highly deceptive, Carson said.
"It may not necessarily say, ‘Hey, this individual is lying,’ but what they aren't doing is being truthful, and there's a distinct difference between the two," he said.
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The tech tool then gives you a detailed description of why certain words may be signs of deception and provides follow-up questions for the user to ask the person.
The company says the tools can help everyone from law enforcement officers to salespeople.
"The advantage over traditional lie detection methods, such as a polygraph machine or body language analysis, says the individual is interpreting the individual who's speaking at that time. When we write and speak, our words reveal what we're saying, even when we're not saying exactly what we want to say. That's the irony, and this is what deception does," Carson said.
Carson said they hope to help everyone from detectives investigating suspects’ statements to sales executives asking clients if they’ll close a deal.
Deceptio launched in June. Right now, Carson said it is offering a 30-day free trial. Afterward, the company will charge on a month-to-month basis.