From the legal mind of My Cousin Vinny: “Everything that guy just said is bullshit. Thank you.”

I can’t wait for that dead guy to sell me some soap now that he’s been fully rendered into the matrix

bout ready to die

the appellate defender is gonna have so much material to work with

what. the. fuck.

@edzitron.com just became the joker

I am flabbergasted. This cannot be admissible in judicial proceedings. Period.

I watched the video, and I gotta say, it was well done and pretty damned moving. Yet another life cut short by senseless gun violence 😞

If the avatar was a recreation of — let’s say Michael Brown — would this story be different? I have to imagine courts will encounter such a scenario in the future.

i've been losing my mind over this story all day, like what fucking hell is this bsky.app/profile/bugs...

That headline is such a stupid take. The avatar was Gen AI, but the actual speech was scripted by the family. It's just a higher tech version of someone in their victim impact statement stating, "If my brother were here today I think he would say blah blah blah."

I guess they couldn't find their ventriloquist dummy so they went with the next dumbest thing.

you are fundamentally missing my point

Literally was agreeing with you while also pointing out the added layer of stupidity inflicted by shit media takes on what the technology used actually did... but sure, I've missed the point 🙄

sorry

you're good lmao

It's so fucked up

Holy shit this is fucked up.

What I can’t believe is that they did this before sentencing and the judge’s sentencing decision was made after he was ‘moved’ by this stunt.

What the hell is this Roshamon shit.

It sucks that people lost their family member, but what in the sweet merciful fuck are we doing?

This reminds me of that one [as] Off The Air episode where they pitch immortality through machines and its just a floating emoji avatar that knows nothing about the person it's supposed to represent

youtu.be/xg29TuWo0Yo?...

I feel like the framing of this story from 404 does paint it with an ounce more humanity than “man speaks to killer from beyond the grave” to maybe the common person, but I cannot get past an ick feeling from this. It should be just wrong, and I’m surprised the judge was so moved by it

Agreed; the headline from The Independent is weird and misleading. The whole point of a victim impact statement is to pull at the heartstrings of the judge; you can't really fault the family for wanting the judge to feel their pain when that's the express goal. Does feel icky to me though.

I still can't get over the fact that the judge let the video influence his sentencing decision. The family was pushing for the max sentence (21 years), and the killer got less than half that with the judge citing the forgiveness in this video as part of the reasoning.

Are you sure? Everywhere I'm reading says the 10.5 years was the maximum.

I think that shorter maximum is if the manslaughter isn't classified as 'dangerous' (meaning not committed with a deadly weapon). Otherwise the max is 21 years

The max was 10.5, that's what he got.

So we're all just supposed to be fine that we all live in a really bad episode of Black Mirror now huh? Wild.

i'll be back in a minute, just adding "if i'm murdered and anyone makes a stupid AI video of me offering forgiveness or any other -ness at my trial, I'll haunt all of you so fucking hard" to my will.

Insanity. Is it possible to appeal this? (Unfortunately, once Pandora’s Box has been opened, there is no going back. We are in dangerous times.)

you can indeed appeal sentences

Horrifying that a sitting judge fell for AI slop. And horrifying that the victim's sister admits she created the AI slop to emotionally manipulate the judge into giving the maximum sentence. Nothing like that should ever be allowed in court.

I'll be working on my will soon, guess I need to add a prohibition on using my image via AI once I'm gone.

it’s unfortunate but I think this will become an increasingly common provision to add to wills, if it isn’t already.

I would never have even thought to include this without this story!

This is so twistedly wrong.

There is no consent.

Weird and fake from the land of weird and fake. Also bringing self deception to new depths allowing people to dodge the reality of their lives.

scuse me going to be screaming at, crying into, bawling on the brink of, and flipping off the void

AI testimony in court may be just a bit too far.

I mean, at least they didn't allow the AI to testify (yet), but this is still really creepy.

Against technological necromancy 💀

This is such insanity.

Mostly in the future if these are allowed they will be used to enact revenge and not forgiveness.

Yeah, I find this disgusting and alarming, but for their sake I hope his family found some comfort and peace from it.

What in the devil...

genuinely trying my hardest not to judge the family. Grief makes you do weird shit, when I lost my dad unexpectedly I acted in ways I'm not proud. but this is just wrong. Make that video for your family if you really must, but to present it to the court is just an awful precedent to set

It's not the family, it's the court permitting this.

I do agree, though I think submitting this to the court is inappropriate on their behalf But ultimately, it's the responsibility of the court to respectfully only allow the living to speak of their impact. It's a disturbing choice made by the court.

@theonion.com , am sure your keyboards are already busy typing up something on these lines...

This is all so incredibly fucking grim.

It’s hard for me to articulate how utterly reprehensible this is. This is arrogating someone’s fucking CORPSE in some horribly misguided attempt at “closure” and people are treating it as authentic?!?! HE’S DEAD. IT WASN’T FUCKING WRITTEN WITH A OUIJA BOARD.

I swear to God if anyone does this with me I will return from whatever dark and joyless place my soul resides and make like Chucky to every single person involved.

You can only choose between 2 dolls

I will INVENT an afterlife, just big bang that ish right into existence with the force of my rage, if someone turns me into an AI.

😬😑

I don't feel that this is right. This is prejudicial and not good evidence. They could make him say anything .

"I loved that AI. Can the prosecution make the victim sing and dance? 🤗👨‍⚖️"

This one made me sad as well as angry. Just…what the fuck

If he’s alive enough in AI to testify, then he’s not really dead, is he?

If he was able to make his own statement, is he really dead? 🤔

Fuck this as hard as something can be fucked

We need more horny judges tho

This one made me purse my lips lawd

I'm calling Tupac's hologram as my next witness.