And the video isn’t even THAT scary. When I first saw this video with a headline about a robot going “berserk”, I expected something closer to terminator like behaviour instead of erratic hand waving. It was clearly just a software bug with no “intent” behind it (apologies for the anthropomorphism).
I think what’s interesting here is that the family was requesting the maximum sentence, yet they submitted the AI delivered impact statement which asked for compassion, if not leniency, in sentencing. That tells me they did their best to earnestly represent the victim, as it contradicted their stated desired outcome.
If they’d actually wanted a lenient sentence, they could have just asked for one.
Just to be clear, they were fully transparent about it:
“Hello, just to be clear for everyone seeing this, I am a version of Chris Pelkey recreated through AI that uses my picture and my voice profile,” the stilted avatar says. “I was able to be digitally regenerated to share with you today. Here is insight into who I actually was in real life.”
However, I think the following is somewhat misleading:
The video goes back to the AI avatar. “I would like to make my own impact statement,” the avatar says.
I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. It seems that the motivation was genuine compassion from the victim’s family, and a desire to honestly represent victim to the best of their ability. But ultimately, it’s still the victim’s sister’s impact statement, not his.
Here’s what the judge had to say:
“I loved that AI, and thank you for that. As angry as you are, and as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness, and I know Mr. Horcasitas could appreciate it, but so did I,” Lang said immediately before sentencing Horcasitas. “I love the beauty in what Christopher, and I call him Christopher—I always call people by their last names, it’s a formality of the court—but I feel like calling him Christopher as we’ve gotten to know him today. I feel that that was genuine, because obviously the forgiveness of Mr. Horcasitas reflects the character I heard about today. But it also says something about the family, because you told me how angry you were, and you demanded the maximum sentence. And even though that’s what you wanted, you allowed Chris to speak from his heart as you saw it. I didn’t hear him asking for the maximum sentence.”
I am concerned that it could set a precedent for misuse, though. The whole thing seems like very grey to me. I’d suggest everyone read the whole article before passing judgement.
Huh, did Sundar not pay his protection money this month, or something?
Good news regardless, though.
We shall cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the geese of war.
Yeah, I don’t quite get it myself. The only thing I can think of is that it might be designed for American citizens living abroad, but I can’t quite figure out why there either.
Maybe it’s just being onerous enough to discourage all but the most serious attempts.
I’d imagine that’s because of the STCA, but there seems to be a loophole where it doesn’t apply if you enter via water and don’t claim refugee status before 14 days.
If I were really determined, I’d at least ask an immigration lawyer about it, and then I’d plan on taking a 2 week camping trip in Canada when I thought shit was likely to go down.
If you face:
- danger of torture
- risk to your life
- risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/asylum/in-canada/eligibility.html
If you enter Canada from the U.S.
[…]
Your claim may not be eligible if you entered Canada from the U.S.:
- at an official land border crossing
or- anywhere along the border, including rivers, lakes and other waterways, and made a refugee claim less than 14 days after the day that you entered
How about neither, lol. They’ll come up with some healthy synthetic dye fast enough if enough money is on the line.
Why are Republicans so enthralled with eating bugs? I’ll take the beet juice, but I’d rather eat some oil than bugs.
yesss, I guess we’ll have toooo
*laughs awkwardly in totally not already vegan*
“Dey took ur jerbs!” 😡
“Ew, not those jerbs.” ✋😒
Trump inadvertently tackling climate change by making animals unsafe to eat.
Just to add, if it’s found that evidence was destroyed, beyond potential seperate charges for the destruction itself, a judge would also typically give an averse inference instruction to the jury. That means the jury should assume that the destroyed evidence would have been damning to whomever destroyed it.
What that tells me is, assuming google acted rationally in the destruction, either they think they have a reasonable chance that they can beat the evidence destruction charges, or that the evidence is so damning that the reality of the situation is considerably worse than whatever adverse inferences might be drawn.
(I am not a lawyer, so please take my interpretation with a large grain of salt.)
It’s judge arrests all the way down!
Some people are just fine being horny on main, I guess. And hey, what’s wrong with a bit of free advertising? 😏
It definitely takes a bit more guts to do it under an oppressive regime, though.
Sure, but now the shit-taker wants a favour from the shit-reciever who is having none of it until the shit is cleaned up. So now we get to watch the shit-taker squirm and writhe while they try to figure out how to untake their shit without looking like the complete idiot that they clearly are.
I mean… maybe? Could an EO be used to just dismiss an existing case? Maybe. It’s kinda make believe land over there right now, so it’s hard to say what is and isn’t in the realm of possibility.
And I don’t know the legal system well enough to say for sure how he could go about it. Presumably some bureaucracy would have to be intervened in to stop the case from proceeding normally. Whether or not he could do that legally seems to be a bit contentious:
https://hls.harvard.edu/today/what-power-does-the-president-have-over-the-federal-bureaucracy/
However, there’s also the question of could he just have some cronies walk in to the place with a bunch of dudes in black suits and do it anyways? I think the DoJ would be pretty pissed if he tried that, but he’s already been flirting with contempt of court and we haven’t seen any judge pull the trigger on that yet, so we’ll see, I guess.
There’s also the fact that nobody’s given him incentive to do it yet. They’ll probably wait and see, as Trump would likely need a sizeable reason to step in, so why pay potentially more on Trump whithout knowing what the damages will even be, right?
I think you’ve got keep in mind that the cogs of the justice system turn slowly.
This is the district level damages decision which will finalize a ruling that was made nearly a year ago. After that, it can be appealed which can be heard by the circuit courts, and then finally the Supreme court, which is ostensibly where Trump has the most sway.
If there’s no play here, it’s because it still hasn’t got far enough through the system for him to want to interfere at this point.
This honestly doesn’t make much sense. The implication would be that all citizens are culpable for their government’s actions once they start paying taxes.
Funding your government isn’t a voluntary act, so your last parenthetical already invalidates most of what you said.