AI-generated video gave the victim a voice in the conviction of his murderer in Arizona

Chandler, ariz. – There were dozens of statements submitted to the court by the family and friends of Christopher Pelkey ​​when it was time to condemn the man who was sentenced to fatally shot him for an incident. They provided pelkey's humor, his character and military service.

But there was nothing better than hearing from the victim itself – even if it was a version that was created by artificial intelligence.

Pelkey's KI used Ki family in the von Pelkey ​​family, which was assumed that they were a first in US courts to create a video with its similarity. Pelkey's AI rendering told the shooter during the conviction negotiation in Phoenix last week that it was a shame that they would have to meet under these circumstances in 2021 – and that in another life the two could probably be friends.

“I believe in forgiveness and God who awards. I always have it and I still do it,” said Pelkeys avatar about Gabriel Paul Horcasitas.

Pelkey's AI version encouraged people to make the best out of the day every day and love each other without knowing how much time you might have left.

While the use of AI is expanding within the court system, it is usually reserved for administrative tasks, legal research and case preparation. In Arizona, it contributed to informing the public about the decisions in significant cases.

However, the use of AI for generating victim -mpact -Impact explanations marks a new -and legal instrument in Arizona -to share information outside of the evidence.

The judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, Todd Lang, who led the case, said after watching the video that he had imagined Pelkey, who was 37 at the time of his murder, so that he had learned something about him. Lang also noticed that the video said something about Pelkey's family who had expressed her trouble about his death and asked Horcasitas to receive the maximum sentence.

“Although they wanted that, they allowed Chris to speak from his heart as they saw it,” said Lang.

The 54 -year -old Horcasitas was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10.5 years in prison.

The lawyer of Horcasitas, Jason Lamm, said the Associated Press that they had submitted a message to appeal his punishment within a few hours after the hearing. Lamm said it was probably the court of appeal whether the judge did not properly rely on the AI ​​video when convicting the judgment.

The shootout occurred in the afternoon of November 13, 2021 when both drivers were stopped in a red light. According to the records, Pelkey ​​was shot after he had come out of his truck and went to Horcasitas' car.

Pelkey's sister Stacey Wales raised the idea that her brother spoke for herself after trying to find out what she would say. She wrote a script for the AI-generated video in which she reflected that he was a forgiving person.

In Arizona, the victims can hand over their impact declarations in any digital format, said Jessica Gattuso, lawyer of the victims who represented the family.

Wales, a software product consultant, brought the AI ​​idea to her husband Tim. He and his friend, who have professional experience, create the human AI-AVATARE. With a video clip from Pelkey ​​they wanted to replicate his voice and voice pattern. They created pelkey's similarity through a single picture of him and manipulated it digitally to remove glasses and a hat logo, edit its outfit and cut his beard.

The Supreme Court of Arizona, the highest judge Ann Timmer, did not speak specifically in an interview on Wednesday at the fall of the street. However, she said that the increase in popularity and accessibility for AI in recent years has led to the creation of a committee to research best practice.

Gary Marchant, member of the committee and legal professor at Arizona State University, said that he understands why Pelkey's family did it. But he warned that the use of this technology could open more people who are trying to bring evidence of evidence in court halls.

“The judiciary and the lawyers are really concerned that deep papal evidence is increasingly being used,” he said. “It is easy to create it, and everyone can do it on a phone, and it could be incredibly influential because judges and juries, just like we are all used to, to believe what they see.”

Marchant recently referred to a case in New York in which a man without a lawyer used an AI general Avatar to argue his case in a complaint by video. It only took seconds for the judges to find that the man who spoke to her on the video screen did not exist at all.

In the case of Arizona, Wales said that the video worked with AI-generated video because the judge had almost 50 letters from family and friends who repeated the news of the video.

“Everyone knew that Chris would award this person,” said Wales.

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Yamat reported Las Vegas. The reporter of Associated Press, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.