Excellent writing here by Parker. She says everything I was thinking about how AI steals the voice of the dead. Once it is accepted by the courts all justice becomes a sham. The dead have already lost their voices, this supplants the absent voice with a stolen narrative, thus stealing their voice - and chance at real justice - twice.
The thing that most confuses me is what was the actual point? In the article I read about this, it said the judge took the nine year sentence the prosecution requested and raised it to ten years because he was so moved by the AI video. The whole forgiveness schpiel makes me think they wanted a more lenient sentence?
I'm 63 and sometimes I wish I was 83, when I think about where all this is headed. "Sorry, kids, for handing you all this shit to deal with, do the best you can, I'm outta here" is the script my avatar will read at my funeral.
Parker - your writing was so unusual and truly brilliant - pointing out the rapidly emerging reality of integration of AI / technology / intention / our centuries old court system which is not at all prepared for anything like this. I am sure this is only the beginning of some pretty amazing new stories - so we should all fasten our seat belts and grab a cocktail.
I can not agree, as this was in the "victim impact" portion of the trial, post verdict. The victim chose to produce this video, and could also have chosen to say nothing, or call for the murderer's execution. This is between those extremes, and in my view acceptable.
The victim is most definitely dead. I'm not sure what Talia was talking about, the victim was not given any choice at all about what was done with his likeness, due to being dead.
A victim was the person making the victim impact statement -- the sister.
Or did you A) not notice this was the victim impact stage of the trial post-verdict?
[I presume you do realize the person killed is never the victim making a statement during the victim impact portion of a murder trial? It's the family/friends then doing it.]
But the sister wasn't the one who made the statement. If she had wanted to go up there and make a statement reflecting her own feelings about what happened, that would of course have been totally normal procedure and no one would ever question it. But instead, the statement was made by an AI facsimile of her deceased brother, saying things she claims he would have said if he was still alive. That feels very different to me, and like a troubling precedent.
And clearly this statement did not represent the sister's feelings about the situation since it expressed forgiveness for the killer, whom she explicitly said she herself does not forgive. So clearly the court was meant to interpret this statement as representing the views of the deceased, not the sister. And then the judge said the court had witnessed genuine forgiveness, which could only have come from the deceased since, again, the sister is clear about the fact that she cannot currently forgive the murderer.
And if you think that's all totally fine and won't lead to anything problematic that's your prerogative, of course people can have different opinions about things. But I don't think it's very accurate to describe the situation as "this was just a family member of the murdered party making an impact statement like in every other murder trial, what's the big deal?"
"But the sister wasn't the one who made the statement."
But she is, she gave the instructions to the AI and approved what it created.
"whom she explicitly said she herself does not forgive"
Nevertheless, she approved the video.
""this was just a family member of the murdered party making an impact statement like in every other murder trial, what's the big deal?""
And nevertheless, it was the family member approving of the speech/expression involved, so I don't believe it sets any precedent at all.
"And then the judge said the court had witnessed genuine forgiveness, which could only have come from the deceased since, again, the sister is clear about the fact that she cannot currently forgive the murderer. "
Which again, can only mean the sister, because she approved the video -- without regard to any confusion on her part, the deceased exists no longer and can not and is not doing any forgiving, neither do I think the judge was in any way confused about it in any way, only the sister possibly was.
If the sister had commissioned an artist to paint a painting about how she felt, and approved the unveiling of the result to a jury for her statement, how would that be significantly different, or equally troubling?
What restrictions on the medium of the speech/expression of a person are acceptable in this case? YMMV, but I see nothing wrong with this, and, no evidence of readjudicatable error, or of any precedent being set.
I suspect it would have been less impactful if the sister has just read the statement out herself, framing it as what she believed her brother would have said, even if accompanied by audio/video clips of her brother -- but no one would have questioned that approach... so I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.
As should be clear at this point, artificial intelligence is only as good as the inputs upon which it's trained. In this case, we have the biased input of the victim's sister. That's not a reliable source.
For all its pitfalls, AI has genuine practical applications. This, however, isn't one of them, and it feels like a situation whereby tech industry folks are broadly prescribing a cure to an ill that doesn't exist. We don't need AI-generated witness testimony, and for that matter, we shouldn't want it.
How much longer until the Reichwing (or the alleged "Left" wing, for that matter) create WWII avatars to endorse their Party and/or speak against their opponents? Benito, Franco, Hirohito, et al have plenty of audio and film/images that can be fed into the puppeteer's hands to ask about her emails. EDIT: Also, in those wizard boy books, death is kind of meaningless since one can just continue "living" as a painting and that one Al-character could even move between three different locations-frames.
Excellent writing here by Parker. She says everything I was thinking about how AI steals the voice of the dead. Once it is accepted by the courts all justice becomes a sham. The dead have already lost their voices, this supplants the absent voice with a stolen narrative, thus stealing their voice - and chance at real justice - twice.
What the actual fuck?
If she wants to tell the judge what she thinks her brother would have said, she can do that — herself.
It won’t be long before AI “victims” are saying “Fry him” and the judge says “I love it.”
Next step is prosecution-produced videos, "Here's how the defendant committed the crime..."
That is already done, and the defense is free to produce the same with their version of events.
The thing that most confuses me is what was the actual point? In the article I read about this, it said the judge took the nine year sentence the prosecution requested and raised it to ten years because he was so moved by the AI video. The whole forgiveness schpiel makes me think they wanted a more lenient sentence?
I'm 63 and sometimes I wish I was 83, when I think about where all this is headed. "Sorry, kids, for handing you all this shit to deal with, do the best you can, I'm outta here" is the script my avatar will read at my funeral.
Parker - your writing was so unusual and truly brilliant - pointing out the rapidly emerging reality of integration of AI / technology / intention / our centuries old court system which is not at all prepared for anything like this. I am sure this is only the beginning of some pretty amazing new stories - so we should all fasten our seat belts and grab a cocktail.
I can not agree, as this was in the "victim impact" portion of the trial, post verdict. The victim chose to produce this video, and could also have chosen to say nothing, or call for the murderer's execution. This is between those extremes, and in my view acceptable.
"This wasn't Christopher Pelkey speaking."
No one claimed or thought otherwise.
"The victim chose to produce this video..."
I'm confused, isn't the victim dead?
The victim is most definitely dead. I'm not sure what Talia was talking about, the victim was not given any choice at all about what was done with his likeness, due to being dead.
A victim was the person making the victim impact statement -- the sister.
Or did you A) not notice this was the victim impact stage of the trial post-verdict?
[I presume you do realize the person killed is never the victim making a statement during the victim impact portion of a murder trial? It's the family/friends then doing it.]
But the sister wasn't the one who made the statement. If she had wanted to go up there and make a statement reflecting her own feelings about what happened, that would of course have been totally normal procedure and no one would ever question it. But instead, the statement was made by an AI facsimile of her deceased brother, saying things she claims he would have said if he was still alive. That feels very different to me, and like a troubling precedent.
And clearly this statement did not represent the sister's feelings about the situation since it expressed forgiveness for the killer, whom she explicitly said she herself does not forgive. So clearly the court was meant to interpret this statement as representing the views of the deceased, not the sister. And then the judge said the court had witnessed genuine forgiveness, which could only have come from the deceased since, again, the sister is clear about the fact that she cannot currently forgive the murderer.
And if you think that's all totally fine and won't lead to anything problematic that's your prerogative, of course people can have different opinions about things. But I don't think it's very accurate to describe the situation as "this was just a family member of the murdered party making an impact statement like in every other murder trial, what's the big deal?"
"But the sister wasn't the one who made the statement."
But she is, she gave the instructions to the AI and approved what it created.
"whom she explicitly said she herself does not forgive"
Nevertheless, she approved the video.
""this was just a family member of the murdered party making an impact statement like in every other murder trial, what's the big deal?""
And nevertheless, it was the family member approving of the speech/expression involved, so I don't believe it sets any precedent at all.
"And then the judge said the court had witnessed genuine forgiveness, which could only have come from the deceased since, again, the sister is clear about the fact that she cannot currently forgive the murderer. "
Which again, can only mean the sister, because she approved the video -- without regard to any confusion on her part, the deceased exists no longer and can not and is not doing any forgiving, neither do I think the judge was in any way confused about it in any way, only the sister possibly was.
If the sister had commissioned an artist to paint a painting about how she felt, and approved the unveiling of the result to a jury for her statement, how would that be significantly different, or equally troubling?
What restrictions on the medium of the speech/expression of a person are acceptable in this case? YMMV, but I see nothing wrong with this, and, no evidence of readjudicatable error, or of any precedent being set.
I suspect it would have been less impactful if the sister has just read the statement out herself, framing it as what she believed her brother would have said, even if accompanied by audio/video clips of her brother -- but no one would have questioned that approach... so I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.
As the defense, I'm wheeling out my own AI variant of the victim to exonerate my client.
And since this was the victim impact portion of the trial post verdict, the judge would shush you -- forcefully.
As should be clear at this point, artificial intelligence is only as good as the inputs upon which it's trained. In this case, we have the biased input of the victim's sister. That's not a reliable source.
For all its pitfalls, AI has genuine practical applications. This, however, isn't one of them, and it feels like a situation whereby tech industry folks are broadly prescribing a cure to an ill that doesn't exist. We don't need AI-generated witness testimony, and for that matter, we shouldn't want it.
Am I the only one who's kind of reminded of the Cadaver Synod (as far as having someone put words in the deceased's mouth)?
How much longer until the Reichwing (or the alleged "Left" wing, for that matter) create WWII avatars to endorse their Party and/or speak against their opponents? Benito, Franco, Hirohito, et al have plenty of audio and film/images that can be fed into the puppeteer's hands to ask about her emails. EDIT: Also, in those wizard boy books, death is kind of meaningless since one can just continue "living" as a painting and that one Al-character could even move between three different locations-frames.