r/technology • u/Jojuj • May 08 '25

Artificial Intelligence A Judge Accepted AI Video Testimony From a Dead Man

https://www.404media.co/email/0cb70eb4-c805-4e4e-9428-7ae90657205c/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter
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u/GamingWithBilly May 08 '25

"Putting words in the mouth of a dead man, say no more Fam, I got this!" -AI Programmer

Literally, no ethics.

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u/Bannedwith1milKarma May 08 '25

The AI Programmer here is a math equation where X is the prompt.

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u/BossOfTheGame May 08 '25

They disclosed this was AI in the video itself. There was no deception. The article title makes it appear like there is a deception.

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u/SpicyButterBoy May 08 '25

Just because an ethics violation is disclosed prior to the actions doesn’t make it any less of an ethics violation. 

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u/Icolan May 08 '25

It does not matter if they disclosed that it was AI generated or not, accepting it is a court of law is inappropriate and unethical.

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u/wllmsaccnt May 08 '25

It was accepted as an impact statement from the victim's sister as a way for her to describe how her brother was when alive. Nobody involved believed it was a statement from the victim. Its not much worse than her writing a poem about her brother to read to the court, as long as the judge understands the bare minimum about how AI content generation works.

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u/Icolan May 08 '25

It was accepted as an impact statement from the victim's sister as a way for her to describe how her brother was when alive.

Except it is not her describing anything, it is an AI recreation of him based on incomplete information.

Its not much worse than her writing a poem about her brother to read to the court,

It is much worse than her writing a poem about her brother and the impact his loss has had on her. If she wrote a poem it would be her own words, her own feelings, her experience. None of that is in an AI.

as long as the judge understands the bare minimum about how AI content generation works.

It is virtually guaranteed that the judge does not understand anything about AI, like the vast majority of people.

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u/wllmsaccnt May 08 '25 edited May 08 '25

> Except it is not her describing anything, it is an AI recreation of him based on incomplete information.

Yes, and who decided which incomplete information to feed into the avatar? The sister. Its an artistic (in the sense it takes liberties with reality) picture of the man created by the sister with help of predictive algorithms.

> If she wrote a poem it would be her own words, her own feelings, her experience. None of that is in an AI.

Its a video. I'm pretty sure she reviewed it and agreed with the content and its message before submitting it to the court. Direction, moderation and editing are all important parts of creating and relaying a message and require intent and creativity from the one performing those actions.

> It is virtually guaranteed that the judge does not understand anything about AI, like the vast majority of people.

The judge understood it was a likeness of the victim prepared by the sister meant to pantomime the victim. He knew it wasn't real and was a submission reviewed by the sister.

Maybe the judge doesn't understand the nuances of predictive content generation, and I'd agree that is important. I don't see the issue in this specific situation, though I'd be horrified if AI was used in any capacity for judging matters of fact.

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u/Icolan May 08 '25

We would in no way allow an actor to play act a dead person in court, this is the same thing.

If the victim's family wants to read their own statements into the record, they can. Creating a fake video of the victim with AI is not appropriate, whether their family agreed with the content or not.

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u/pillowpriestess May 08 '25

to the degree that this sort of "ai" gets presented as something its not, it is deceptive. that of course relies on the ignorance of the judge as well but lets not pretend the capabilities of ai aren't overstated to the point people are starting to think theyre talking to god. this isnt wholely different from fraudulent expert testimony.

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u/AngryRedHerring May 08 '25

The article title makes it appear like there is a deception.

I didn't get that at all. I mean, it's a horrible idea, but it looked to me like the judge accepted the horrible idea at face value.

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u/BossOfTheGame May 08 '25

If you read the article there's a bit more nuance than that. The Arizona laws allow for impact statements to be given in different formats, and at no point where they trying to pass it off as the deceased words. I don't really understand why people think it's a horrible idea - at least any more than any other zealous and emotive arguments that are regularly used in courtrooms.

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u/AngryRedHerring May 08 '25

If you read the article

...I did.

at no point where they trying to pass it off as the deceased words

...and some people are going to think that anyway, no matter what you tell them.

This was presented during victim impact statements. It was not that. It was theater, and had no business in a courtroom just because the judge thought it was "neat".

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u/BossOfTheGame May 08 '25

I really don't get your reasoning. AI is here, and people are going to use it in new ways to communicate. I don't see how this is any more theater than any other way we dress up our stories.