An AI avatar made to look and sound like the likeness of a man who was killed in a road rage incident addressed the court and the man who killed him: “To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” the AI avatar of Christopher Pelkey said. “In another life we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and a God who forgives. I still do.”
It was the first time the AI avatar of a victim—in this case, a dead man—has ever addressed a court, and it raises many questions about the use of this type of technology in future court proceedings.
The avatar was made by Pelkey’s sister, Stacey Wales. Wales tells 404 Media that her husband, Pelkey’s brother-in-law, recoiled when she told him about the idea. “He told me, ‘Stacey, you’re asking a lot.’”
I could see this being used in retributive justice to help humanize victims to perpetrators but it should really be a private thing and not a means of getting a confession or shaming the perpetrator further
“getting a confession”? more like straight up fabricating
I really don’t get how this is allowed.
Watched the video, it is creepy. It is also edited. Wife seems to just have put words on her dead husband’s AI.
This has not set a legal precedent. WTF.
Honestly, all she’s done has created history’s most gaping opportunity for an appeal.
If I get killed and my family forgives the killer on my behalf I am haunting their asses so hard.
especially if an AI ghost of you was used to exonerate the killer.
then it’s your ghost VS an AI ghost
it would have been about as respectful to use the corpse as a puppet and put up a show for the court with it.
Trial at Bernies? OK WERE DOING TRIAL AT BERNIES! This is going to be legend-wait for it…
I found this interesting. The AI said it believes in forgiveness.
“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” the AI Pelkey says. “In another life we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness, in God who forgives, I always have. And I still do.”
But the victim’s sister, who created the AI did it to try to get the maximum sentence for the defendant.
The prosecution against Horcasitas was only seeking nine years for the killing. The maximum was 10 and a half years. Stacey had asked the judge for the full sentence during her own impact statement. The judge granted her request, something Stacey credits—in part—to the AI video.
Yeah, a way to play both sides of pushing for a harsh sentence whole you use a puppet to drive empathy…
Should have been a slam dunk without the video.
This is precedent now. Wheeeeeeeee common law system.
No it’s not. Look at the court level in which it was shown.
This is some perverse shit
To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” the AI avatar of Christopher Pelkey said. “In another life we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and a God who forgives. I still do.”
I find this nauseatingly disgusting and a disgrace that this was shown in a court of all places.
No, this man does not believe in forgiveness or a God because he’s dead. He never said this, somebody wrote this script and a computer just made a video off it with his likeness.
Fuck everything about this, this should be prohibited
This wasn’t testimony, it was an impact statement.
Impact statements are wild and crazy and this isn’t surprising in anyway
No, this wasn’t an impact statement either.
This was a huntch of pixels moved around by a huge wasteful amount of CPU power. The actual victim is dead, he can’t talk and people are putting words in his mouth and it shouldn’t be allowed.
Fuck everything about this, this should be prohibited
Why? Who exactly is being harmed by this? The dead guy, certainly isn’t. It’s no different than a statement from a family member. The method of delivery does not make a difference to the material content. You’re acting as if it’s putting words in the mouth of someone who’s died but everyone intellectually knows that the AI isn’t contacting the dead.
You would have a hard time arguing that someone could be confused into believing that this was actually the opinion of the deceased.
You have a lot of faith in people’s logic level. Most people read at 6th grade level. There is a person saying “I think this”, do you really think everyone in there thought “I’m completely unaware of what the deceased thought”
Time to update my will.
“Hi, I’m Manifish_Destiny speaking to you from beyond the grave. I’m happy to say that even though I had some skepticism of AI avatars and even put something about that in my will, I just didn’t understand its potential to embody my true self. But now I do, so you can disregard all that. Come to think of it, you can disregard the rest of the will as well, I’ve got some radical new ideas…”
This is basically “Weekend at Bernie’s”, using the likeness of a dead man as a puppet.
This judge needs to be disbarred and have a forced mental evaluation.
The fuckin’ dude’s wife wrote the speech the AI read… I don’t care how much you know someone, putting words in their mouths like that feels wrong. And the fucking judge added a year to the sentence citing the power of the video.
Fucking absurd.
I thought it was his sister who wrote the speech the AI read, but yeah, this whole thing feels wrong and gross.
Yeah, this is super fucked up. I think that it would be powerful and completely reasonable to have the AI read actual words he wrote, like from old text messages, emails, or whatever. That is a legitimate way to bring someone to life—completely ethical if they wrote the material. This is a disgrace to justice and ridiculous.
nope. nope nope nope! Fuck this. I wanna go back to 2002 with Cortana whispering in my ear about fleet chatter and being optimistic.
That’s not the world that unfurled though, and LLM’s are not AI.
This marketing hype regurgitation machine “learning” can all go eat shit. All of it. Soooo done with the simps saying “oh but this application of the tech totally justifies burning down forests and guzzling water and power and totally wasnt trained on stolen, socially prejudice datasets”
Fuck that noise and while we’re at it I’m entirely turned off by AAA media trends and current gen hardware too. Don’t @ me, fuck a smartphone I’ve got a DS.
“gampa, did it hurt when you died?”
Hey there, buddy. That’s a big question! When people get very old or very sick, their bodies sometimes get tired, like a toy that slowly stops working. Normal people might go and buy a new toy from Amazon with all their great prices and exceptional customer service but your old gramps couldn’t do that. When it’s time to go, it’s usually peaceful—like falling asleep after a long, fun day on a nice comfortable Saatva bed. I don’t think it hurts, because our bodies know how to let go gently. What’s important is all the love and happy memories we share. You can even go back and look at all our wonderful memories from the good people at Instagram. And even when I’m not here anymore, that love stays with you forever. Would you like to send some of those memories to your local Walgreen’s to print?
Ha, genius. So true as well, this is the inevitable result of personalised ads. A video of your dead Grandmother popping up saying: “I sure did love big brand hazelnut chocolate. Celebrate my birthday tomorrow and buy a bar for you and the whole family.”
Omg I hate this so much fuck you
So you prefer CVS?
Please stop talking, please
I like AI, sort of. But this is ghoulish.
“I loved that AI, and thank you for that…” Lang said immediately before sentencing Horcasitas.
I hope they win that appeal an get a new sentencing or a new trial even. That sounds like a horrible misuse of someone’s likeness. Even if my family used a direct quote from me I’d be PISSED if they recreated my face and voice without my permission.
They can’t appeal on this issue because the defense didn’t object to the statement and, therefore, did not preserve the issue for appeal.
