Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Roger Bassik.
Speaker 2: And I'm Marina Sante. Spotslight uses a special English method
Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
Speaker 3: I bought poison. I met him at McDonald's.
Speaker 1: A police station in Puna, India. Officers are investigating a murder.
Speaker 1: They believe that Adity Charmad gave poison to her former
Speaker 1: boyfriend and killed him. An officer reads out some statements.
Speaker 1: They describe how the police think the murder happened. They
Speaker 1: have placed a special covering on her head. There are
Speaker 1: thirty two electrodes attached to it. These electrodes carry electrical
Speaker 1: messages from the brain to the machine. But Aditi does
Speaker 1: not say anything. She does not need to. The machine
Speaker 1: shows how Aditi's brain reacts. It is reading her brain.
Speaker 2: Today's sponse LIGHTE is on telling the truth? Can technology
Speaker 2: force people to tell the truth? Is it possible to
Speaker 2: never lie at all?
Speaker 1: In June two thousand and eight, Aditi Charmant was found
Speaker 1: guilty of murdering her former boyfriend Udit Barti. It was
Speaker 1: the first time in the world that brain reading technology
Speaker 1: had been used as evidence in a trial.
Speaker 2: The machine showed that Aditi remembered the events of the murder.
Speaker 2: The judge decided that that meant Aditi must have been
Speaker 2: involve in the murder. But not everyone thought the judge
Speaker 2: was right to trust the brain reading machine. Scientists in
Speaker 2: India did not agree that the machine always produced the
Speaker 2: correct results.
Speaker 1: India is not the only place that has brain reading machines.
Speaker 1: Some groups in the United States also use similar technologies,
Speaker 1: but these machines work in a different way. The machines
Speaker 1: measure how blood flows through the brain. A person answers
Speaker 1: questions while an expert watches the machine. The machine shows
Speaker 1: which parts of the brain the person is using, so
Speaker 1: experts can work out if the person was lying or
Speaker 1: telling the truth. People who have been accused of lying
Speaker 1: can pay to use the machine. It can help to
Speaker 1: show if the person is being honest, but unlike in India,
Speaker 1: these results are not yet usable in US courts.
Speaker 2: Truth telling machines sound like something out of a story
Speaker 2: book about the future. In fact, many writers have written
Speaker 2: about similar machines. In nineteen ninety six, James Halperin wrote
Speaker 2: a science fiction book called The Truth Machine. It described
Speaker 2: a machine that shows if people are telling the truth.
Speaker 2: Alperin is surprised at how quickly his ideas about the
Speaker 2: future have become true. He spoke to the website Reason
Speaker 2: online about brain reading technology.
Speaker 4: He said, it is happening much faster than I thought
Speaker 4: it would. I was talking about the idea of a
Speaker 4: truth machine back in the nineteen nineties. I had a
Speaker 4: friend who was a brain scientist. He told me that
Speaker 4: it would take fifty years if ever, before such a
Speaker 4: thing could be created. I chose the year twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four as the date this was so the idea would
Speaker 4: not seem too impossible.
Speaker 1: Some people are now worried about the use of brain
Speaker 1: reading technology. They say that using such a machine would
Speaker 1: be morally wrong. They say people's thoughts should be their own.
Speaker 1: It should not be legal for anyone to read the
Speaker 1: thoughts and memories of other people. This could affect a
Speaker 1: person's basic freedom. However, other people say that the technology
Speaker 1: could be used in good ways. The machine could stop
Speaker 1: criminals from lying to police. It could also mean that
Speaker 1: no one will ever be tortured again.
Speaker 2: The technology is still not completely established. Many experts still
Speaker 2: think it needs better testing before it can be used
Speaker 2: for importance matters. But what if this machine was used
Speaker 2: more and more? What would the world be like if
Speaker 2: we could force everyone to tell the truth? Would the
Speaker 2: world be a better place or would a truth machine
Speaker 2: create too many problems.
Speaker 1: Most people believe it is generally wrong to lie. Many
Speaker 1: religions also teach this. For example, the Christian Bible includes
Speaker 1: the command do not lie about other people. Some of
Speaker 1: the world's greatest thinkers or philosophers have also written about lying.
Speaker 1: One of these philosophers was Immanuel kat He lived in
Speaker 1: Germany in the eighteenth century. He said that lying was
Speaker 1: always morally wrong. He believed that actions were only good
Speaker 1: if these actions could work as a law for everyone,
Speaker 1: but lying went against this. He said if everyone lied
Speaker 1: all the time, then life would become extremely difficult.
Speaker 2: Another philosopher who wrote about lying was Saint Augustine. He
Speaker 2: was a Christian teacher who in the fourth century wrote
Speaker 2: a book called on Lying.
Speaker 5: He said, it seems to me that every lie is wrong. However,
Speaker 5: there are different kinds of lies. These depend on the
Speaker 5: reason and subject of the lie. Someone may lie to
Speaker 5: try and be helpful. He does not do wrong as
Speaker 5: much as someone who lies to be evil.
Speaker 1: However, in some situations it is difficult to avoid telling lies.
Speaker 1: For example, someone prepares a meal for you, but you
Speaker 1: do not like it. Is it right to lie to
Speaker 1: that person or will it just hurt their feelings for
Speaker 1: no reason. One man who faced this issue was Cahol Moro.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, he decided not to lie
Speaker 1: for a whole year. He wanted to experience the issues
Speaker 1: created when someone only told the truth. Kahol Morro is
Speaker 1: British but lives with his family in Spain. He finished
Speaker 1: his truth telling program in two thousand and nine. Before
Speaker 1: he started the project, he said.
Speaker 3: Lying just gets easier. Once you open the door, there
Speaker 3: seems little reason to close it. Thinking about it, I
Speaker 3: suppose I do lie a little, but I only tell
Speaker 3: an acceptable number of small lies. I often tell people
Speaker 3: what I think they would like to hear. This is
Speaker 3: instead of what I truly think. Do I lie to
Speaker 3: be liked to be nice? Because it's easy.
Speaker 2: Kathle Morrow wrote a book about his year of truth telling.
Speaker 2: For most people never lie. It is just too difficult.
Speaker 2: But for many philosophers and religious leaders, these questions about
Speaker 2: truth and lies are very important. As Kathle Morrow said,
Speaker 2: it is easy to open the door to lies, but
Speaker 2: it is much more difficult to close it again, do.
Speaker 1: You prefer people who tell you the truth? How often
Speaker 1: do you find yourself lying because it is easier than
Speaker 1: telling others the truth? Tell us what you think. You
Speaker 1: can leave a comment on our website at www dot
Speaker 1: Spotlight English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: Blue Sky n X. You can also get our programs
Speaker 1: delivered directly to your andriter Apple device through our free
Speaker 1: official Spotlight English app.
Speaker 2: The writer of this program was from the Spotslight team.
Speaker 2: The producer was mitchio Ozaki. The voice as you heard
Speaker 2: were from the United States and the United Kingdom. All
Speaker 2: quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotslight.
Speaker 2: This program is called truth Telling.
Speaker 1: We hope you can join us again for the next
Speaker 1: Spotlight Advanced program. Goodbye,