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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • 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.



















  • 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.)