Micah Clark is a cognitive science PhD candidate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). His research examines mechanical sophistry and the generation of deceptive arguments and seductive lies. His work is producing a theory of how biases in human reasoning can be exploited in the generation of illusory arguments and sophistic argumentation. It includes a fully formal account of deception and mendacity, and algorithms for machine generation of psychologically seductive deceptions. The inverse of this theory provides means for detecting deception in communication and argumentative discourse.
Mr. Clark is also a Senior Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he specializes in the infusion of new autonomy technologies into robotic space-exploration missions. During his 10+ years at JPL, he managed and/or contributed to numerous R&D projects and space exploration missions including the Deep Space 1 ‘Remote Agent’, the Spitzer space telescope, the Mars rovers ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’, and the comet impactor, ‘Deep Impact’.