Try to fool an artificial intelligence lie detector, discover innovative fashion made using rare pictures of the Antarctic and find out why 7,000 socks will be hanging in Central Library, as the UK's Manchester Metropolitan University joins the Manchester Science Festival 2018. The festival, which is in its 12th year, is organised by the Science and Industry Museum – with Manchester Met showcasing some of its most exciting projects and researchers in locations across the city. RELATED: Smart cities need to be more human, so we're creating Sims-style virtual worlds Scientists from Manchester Metropolitan will reveal their cutting-edge research, answer any burning questions about how science and technology will shape our futures, and give you the opportunity to take part in live hands-on science experiments. Interest in and focus on smart cities has skyrocketed in 2018, with a very large number of vendors from across the value chain repositioning and optimizing their IoT portfolios to take advantage of this beckoning opportunity. Members of the public are invited to attempt to get past iBorderCtrl – a virtual border guard that uses artificial intelligence to work out whether people are lying about who they are and why they are travelling.

The complex passenger flows, demanding identification challenges and pressure-filled security conditions that are inherent in border control make the arena appear an interesting prospect for artificial intelligence-based solutions that can revolutionise critical processes. Machine-learning technologies being developed could identify risk patterns at speeds way beyond humans' capacity, and when tied with the powerful security offered by biometrics, AI's potential to disrupt the world of borders expands even further. What then is the future for the border guard? Will their decades of document security expertise and nuanced instincts be made rendered obsolete by a'border bot'? Planet Biometrics caught up with Cyrille Bataller, Artificial Intelligence lead at Accenture, to learn about his team's AI initiatives for borders and about his views on the importance of a "people-first" approach.