Looking at the downvotes, remember upvoting an article ≠ an endorsement of the shitty technology being discussed in the article.
We shit on the technology in the comments, and upvote it so more of us can read about it and shit on it.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Maybe they like the technology and that's why they're downvoting the story.
I just can't upvote this trash story even though you are correct about the usual reason for upvoting posts even when the subject matter is terrible.
If I am murdered please don’t do this. I do not care if you feel like it will help you process the events
It sounds like it was played after a sentencing was given? Would be kind of sketchy if not.
This was played before sentencing. It doesn't say it here, but the article I read earlier today stated that because of this video, the judge issued a sentence greater than the maximum recommended by the State. If true, then it really calls into question the sentence itself and how impartial the judge was.
Oh - then that’s fucked up. Synthesizing some narrative to potentially coerce an outcome seems like a slippery slope. (Not necessarily saying that’s exactly what happened here.)
It appears this was a Victim impact statement.
A victim impact statement is a written or oral statement made as part of the judicial legal process, which allows crime victims the opportunity to speak during the sentencing of the convicted person or at subsequent parole hearings.
From the article (emphasizes mine):
But the use of AI for a victim impact statement appears novel, according to Maura Grossman, a professor at the University of Waterloo who has studied the applications of AI in criminal and civil cases. She added, that she did not see any major legal or ethical issues in Pelkey's case.
"Because this is in front of a judge, not a jury, and because the video wasn't submitted as evidence per se, its impact is more limited," she told NPR via email.
Ah yes, appeals to emotion, my favorite part of the judicial process.
It feels like that's the point of victim impact statements, even though it's probably not supposed to be
Reminds me of the crime skeleton, shout out to anyone who knows what I'm talking about.
Who could forget truly an inventionbefore it's time.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/criminal-confession-skeleton-patent
Thanks for sharing; I thought this was a fascinating read, especially since it ended on a positive note and not pure condemnation. It seems totally Black Mirror-esque, but I do wonder how many of the commentators here attacking it didn't read the article. The family obviously didn't make this decision lightly, given how much work it took to create it, and even the judge appreciated the novel approach. This is probably one of the best-case use scenarios relative to the abyss of unstoppable horror that awaits us.
Fascinating but also kind of creepy.
Perhaps; it seemed like they knew the decedent well enough to know that he would appreciate this, from everything that the article says. With that said, I also won't be surprised if templates for wills or living trusts add a no-duplication statement by default over the coming years.
If my family hired an actor to impersonate me at my killer's trial and give a prepared speech about how I felt about the situation it would be thrown out of court.
If my family hired a cartoonist or movie studio to create a moving scene with my face recreated by digital artists and a professional voice actor to talk about my forgiveness for my death, it would be thrown out of court.
That they used a generative program to do it and the Judge allowed the video to influence the sentence as if it were a statement by the deceased is deeply troubling.
Apparently, it was required to be allowed in that state:
Reading a bit more, during the sentencing phase in that state people making victim impact statements can choose their format for expression, and it's entirely allowed to make statements about what other people would say. So the judge didn't actually have grounds to deny it.
No jury during that phase, so it's just the judge listening to free form requests in both directions.
It's gross, but the rules very much allow the sister to make a statement about what she believes her brother would have wanted to say, in whatever format she wanted.
From: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/18471175
influence the sentence
From what I've seen, to be fair, judges' decisions have varied wildly regardless, sadly, and sentences should be more standardized. I wonder what it would've been otherwise.
So a virtual corpse puppet?