MAFS star talks about ‘never seen before twist’ on their new reality dating show - and I predict a big problem

This has been described as a sunny and romantic paradise where the principles of truth and honesty must be abide by and there is just one rule: do not lie. It sounds straight-forward but, as any reality dating show binger like me will know, it absolutely won’t be.

Each single is hoping to find true love but, to encourage full transparency in their new relationships, there is a potential prize fund of £100,000 up for grabs. The participants can only be eligible to win it, however, if they choose to be open and completely honest about their true feelings as the go on dates.

The daters will face The Honesty Box, which is a cutting edge lie detection system, and asked probing questions about their dating past and present. If The Honesty Box detects a lie, it could impact their newly formed relationship and the prize fund.

Giving more details on the show, Light told The Mirror: "I think it really is a fantastic new reality television show that hasn't been seen before. It's been cast really well. It's a short binge with only nine episodes. I think the concept is fantastic.” . . . I agree, it sounds juicy, scandalous and chaotic - just what we need to fill the huge gap that wil be left by Married at First Sight Australia season 12, which will sadly be over by the time it airs.

Light further explained: "There's a trust fund so the more lies that are told, money comes out of the trust fund and the most genuine and authentic couple win what's left. It's using an AI piece of technology with 88% accuracy that detects lies so it reads the body, the eyes and it basically plucks out the liars, works out who's telling the truth or not and which realtionships are genuine.”

Here’s where I think the big problem is. It’s not clear if the contestants will be aware that The Honesty Box doesn’t actually have 100% accuracy, but if they do then the concept is completely lost. That’s because whenever anyone gets caught out in a lie they’ll just claim that they are telling the truth and it’s the machine’s inaccuracy margain coming to the fore. So then, if they have what is quite a legitimate get out clause what’s the point?

Presumably, like other dating shows such as MAFS, Love Island and Too Hot to Handle, TV cameras will catch what happens so people won’t be able to argue with video evidence - though again my vast experience of watching many reality dating shows tells me that some of them will.

I also know from my time as an avid dating show viewer that it’s impossible to record people 24/7 and catch everything they do so there’s bound to be some issues there too? And what happens if people are asked questions about their feelings? That’s going to be much harder to prove, or disprove . . . and I can see there been multiple frustating denials, ridiculous protestations of innocence and also predictable and boring blaming of the tech.

I will still watch the show, partly to see how long it takes for my point to be proven, but I must admit I was disappointed when I learned about what I believe to be a huge flaw in the show - and for that reason I’m not looking forward to it as much as I once was.

• The Honesty Box premieres on E4 later this month. An exact release date for the show has not yet been revealed, but we’ll update this page with it once we have it.