Can technology predict bad intentions? The Department of Homeland Security is hoping it can, though even experts working on the technology are dubious that this is a silver bullet. The New Scientist reports this week on how a* *"battery of lasers, cameras, eye trackers and microphones begin secretly compiling a dossier of information about your body." The goal of all this technology is to predict your future intentions.
A lot of people are asking: How can this technology know that you have "hostile intent" because you want to blow up a plane, or that your hostility stems from the fact that your toothpaste was confiscated because it's in a 3.5 ounce container instead of a 3 ounce container? Thermal imaging, for example, has proved to be a less-than-reliable indicator of intention. And as the article notes, even researchers involved in deception detection have expressed doubt about Project Hostile Intent: