The victim delivered a searing impact statement. Just one thing felt off
It was a routine enough tableau; a judge, sitting at the bench, watching the victim of a violent attack address a courtroom via video as they forgave their attacker and asked for leniency.
The judge held the fate of the perpetrator, already found guilty and awaiting sentencing, in their hands. As the video statement ended, the judge commented that he 'loved' it, that he 'heard the forgiveness'. It was a moving moment. The only issue was that the victim had been dead for three and a half years.
The video was an
AI
-generated victim impact statement from a murdered man, Christopher Pelkey.
This use of synthetically generated video and audio of a murder victim in an
Arizona
court
last month
felt like another 'puffer jacket pope' moment. The viral AI-generated image of
Pope Francis
in a white Balenciaga-style down jacket fooled millions and catapulted image generation tools into the cultural mainstream. Now, along with popes in puffer jackets, we have another watershed moment in 'ghostbots'.
READ MORE
Unlike the people it depicts, the 'digital afterlife industry', as it is more formally known, is alive and kicking. Companies with names such as HereAfter AI and You Only Virtual allow users to create digital archives of themselves so that the people they leave behind can interact with 'them' once they are gone.
These apps market themselves to the living or bypass the person being digitally cloned altogether. The bereaved are now offered the promise of 'regenerating' their deceased relatives and friends. People out there are, at this moment, interacting with virtual renderings of their mothers and spouses on apps with names such as Re:memory and Replika.
They don't need the participation or consent of the deceased. The video used to reanimate Christopher Pelkey was created using widely available tools and a few simple reference points – a YouTube interview and his obituary photo, according to
The New York Times
.
This gives the generated footage the feel of a decent cheapfake rather than a sophisticated deepfake. Watching it, you find yourself in the so-called 'uncanny valley', that feeling you get when interacting with a bot, when your brain knows something is not quite right. This person is too serene, too poreless, too ethereal as they stare into your eyes and talk about their own death.
Pelkey's sister wrote the script, imagining the message she believed her brother would have wanted to deliver. This includes the synthetic version of Pelkey addressing 'his' killer: 'It is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances. In another life, we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and in God, who forgives. I always have and I still do.'
[
Why Greeks are in pole position when it comes to artificial intelligence
Opens in new window
]
I do not doubt that the Pelkey family had good intentions. They had a point they wanted to make, saw a tool to let them do it, and were permitted to do so by the court. They also likely believe they know what their lost loved one would have wanted. But should anyone really have the power to put words in the mouth and voice of the deceased?
We often fret about AI image and video generation tools being used to mislead us, to trick us as voters or targets of scams. But deception and manipulation are not the same thing. In that Arizona courtroom there was no intention to deceive: no one thought this was the actual murder victim speaking. Yet that does not diminish its emotional impact.
If we can have the murdered plea for peace, does that mean we could also have AI ghosts asking for vengeance, retribution or war?
Political actors have embraced generative AI, with its ability to cheaply make persuasive, memorable content. Despite fears it would be used for disinformation, most public use cases are of non-deceptive 'soft fakes'. An
attack ad
against Donald Trump, for example, featured audio of a synthetic version of his voice saying out loud something he had only written in a tweet.
However, the real political AI innovation is happening in India, where last year candidates did things such as create videos of them speaking in languages they do not know, and even generate digital 'endorsements' from
long dead
figures. One candidate had the voice of his father, who died from Covid in 2020, tell voters; 'Though I died, my soul is still with all of you ... I can assure you that my son, Vijay, will work for the betterment of Kanniyakumari.' Vijay won.
People have long tried to speak for the dead, often to further their own ends. AI turbo charges this into a kind of morbid ventriloquism, rendered in high definition and delivered with reverential sincerity. But the danger isn't that we mistake these digital ghosts for the real thing, it's that we know what they are, and still acquiesce to being emotionally manipulated by them.
Maybe now we all need to look into whether we need to write a will with a new kind of DNR: Do Not Regenerate.
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Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Irish Times
The victim delivered a searing impact statement. Just one thing felt off
It was a routine enough tableau; a judge, sitting at the bench, watching the victim of a violent attack address a courtroom via video as they forgave their attacker and asked for leniency. The judge held the fate of the perpetrator, already found guilty and awaiting sentencing, in their hands. As the video statement ended, the judge commented that he 'loved' it, that he 'heard the forgiveness'. It was a moving moment. The only issue was that the victim had been dead for three and a half years. The video was an AI -generated victim impact statement from a murdered man, Christopher Pelkey. This use of synthetically generated video and audio of a murder victim in an Arizona court last month felt like another 'puffer jacket pope' moment. The viral AI-generated image of Pope Francis in a white Balenciaga-style down jacket fooled millions and catapulted image generation tools into the cultural mainstream. Now, along with popes in puffer jackets, we have another watershed moment in 'ghostbots'. READ MORE Unlike the people it depicts, the 'digital afterlife industry', as it is more formally known, is alive and kicking. Companies with names such as HereAfter AI and You Only Virtual allow users to create digital archives of themselves so that the people they leave behind can interact with 'them' once they are gone. These apps market themselves to the living or bypass the person being digitally cloned altogether. The bereaved are now offered the promise of 'regenerating' their deceased relatives and friends. People out there are, at this moment, interacting with virtual renderings of their mothers and spouses on apps with names such as Re:memory and Replika. They don't need the participation or consent of the deceased. The video used to reanimate Christopher Pelkey was created using widely available tools and a few simple reference points – a YouTube interview and his obituary photo, according to The New York Times . This gives the generated footage the feel of a decent cheapfake rather than a sophisticated deepfake. Watching it, you find yourself in the so-called 'uncanny valley', that feeling you get when interacting with a bot, when your brain knows something is not quite right. This person is too serene, too poreless, too ethereal as they stare into your eyes and talk about their own death. Pelkey's sister wrote the script, imagining the message she believed her brother would have wanted to deliver. This includes the synthetic version of Pelkey addressing 'his' killer: 'It is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances. In another life, we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and in God, who forgives. I always have and I still do.' [ Why Greeks are in pole position when it comes to artificial intelligence Opens in new window ] I do not doubt that the Pelkey family had good intentions. They had a point they wanted to make, saw a tool to let them do it, and were permitted to do so by the court. They also likely believe they know what their lost loved one would have wanted. But should anyone really have the power to put words in the mouth and voice of the deceased? We often fret about AI image and video generation tools being used to mislead us, to trick us as voters or targets of scams. But deception and manipulation are not the same thing. In that Arizona courtroom there was no intention to deceive: no one thought this was the actual murder victim speaking. Yet that does not diminish its emotional impact. If we can have the murdered plea for peace, does that mean we could also have AI ghosts asking for vengeance, retribution or war? Political actors have embraced generative AI, with its ability to cheaply make persuasive, memorable content. Despite fears it would be used for disinformation, most public use cases are of non-deceptive 'soft fakes'. An attack ad against Donald Trump, for example, featured audio of a synthetic version of his voice saying out loud something he had only written in a tweet. However, the real political AI innovation is happening in India, where last year candidates did things such as create videos of them speaking in languages they do not know, and even generate digital 'endorsements' from long dead figures. One candidate had the voice of his father, who died from Covid in 2020, tell voters; 'Though I died, my soul is still with all of you ... I can assure you that my son, Vijay, will work for the betterment of Kanniyakumari.' Vijay won. People have long tried to speak for the dead, often to further their own ends. AI turbo charges this into a kind of morbid ventriloquism, rendered in high definition and delivered with reverential sincerity. But the danger isn't that we mistake these digital ghosts for the real thing, it's that we know what they are, and still acquiesce to being emotionally manipulated by them. Maybe now we all need to look into whether we need to write a will with a new kind of DNR: Do Not Regenerate.
Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Irish Times
Boston rape case: The full story of Dublin firefighter Terence Crosbie's trial
After a six-day trial and more than 22 hours of jury deliberations, a Dublin firefighter arrested on rape charges in a US city last year remains behind bars, his fate still in limbo. A Boston judge declared a mistrial and the jury 'hung' on Friday, sending the jury of eight men and four women home, and Terence Crosbie (38) back to the Nashua Street Jail. If a retrial moves forward, Mr Crosbie will once again face charges for raping a 29-year-old attorney. The alleged assault was first reported to authorities by the woman at a hospital in the early hours of March 15th, 2024. READ MORE The night began at The Black Rose, an Irish pub in the city on one of the busiest nights for the bar, leading up to St Patrick's weekend. The Black Rose Irish pub in Boston The woman alleged she returned to the hotel room of a Dublin firefighter she met at the bar for a night of consensual sex. She was with a man she described as a little shorter than herself, bald, white, with an Irish accent and who authorities later identified as Liam O'Brien. Mr Crosbie and Mr O'Brien had travelled to Boston as part of a Dublin Fire Brigade contingent that was due to march in the city's St Patrick's Day parade. The woman claimed she fell asleep in the other bed and woke up to another man who 'was not bald' but who 'also had an Irish accent' raping her. The man, she claimed, mocked Mr O'Brien and insisted that she 'wanted it'. All this occurred to the 'dull background soundtrack', as a prosecutor put it, of Mr O'Brien's continuous snoring. 'Our nightmares belong in our sleep,' prosecutor Daniela Mendes told the jury in her opening statement on the first day of trial. 'Her nightmare began as she woke up.' Throughout, Mr Crosbie was steadfast in his insistence that he was wrongly accused and had been held behind bars for 15 months, unable to make bail or afford living costs in the foreign country. 'I'm going to ask you to consider Mr Crosbie's nightmare. I'm going to ask you to end that nightmare,' said defence attorney Daniel C Reilly in his closing argument to the jury. The assault allegedly took place at the historic Omni Parker House, the hotel made famous as the location where a young US politician named John F Kennedy proposed to Jacqueline Bouvier. The case was heard blocks away at the Suffolk Superior courthouse, an art deco relic with marbled hallways and wood panel courtrooms in the heart of Boston. The Omni Parker House hotel in Boston The jury heard testimony from the woman and Mr Crosbie, with assistance from a transcript, at times, to parse Mr Crosbie's accent. His defence team alleged the woman was a 'less than reliable reporter due to intoxication and memory lapses'. They argued that she did not remember Mr O'Brien's first or last name or having ever met Mr Crosbie. They made insinuations about her promiscuity and questioned her about psychiatric medication on the stand. On the other side, the prosecution alleged Mr Crosbie's testimony was 'rehearsed and insincere'. The woman was the prosecution's first witness. She testified that on Thursday, March 14th she had been hosting a social work gathering, went to a restaurant with colleagues afterwards and then to The Black Rose with a coworker. In cross-examination, Mr Crosbie's legal team asserted she had been out drinking for more than 10 hours. Dublin Fire Brigade member Terence Crosbie (centre) alongside his defence lawyers Daniel C Reilly (left) and Patrick Garrity during his trial in a Boston court. Photograph: Susan Zalkind A witness for the defence – Dr Chris Rosenbaum, who serves as the director of medical toxicology for Newton Wellesley Hospital – testified that the complainant reported a 'prior history of binge drinking' in her medical documents and that her blood alcohol level at the time she reported the assault the next morning can 'correlate with memory loss and impairment'. He said she could have been almost three times the legal driving limit at the time of the alleged assault. Prosecutors argued that she had her wits about her. They played CCTV video of The Black Rose from the evening in question. In the witness box, she pointed herself out in the video to jurors as the individual dancing 'very awkwardly' and trying to get others to join in. She said Mr O'Brien and his colleagues were wearing T-shirts identifying themselves as members of the Dublin Fire Brigade. CCTV video later showed her and Mr O'Brien entering the hotel, just before midnight, taking the elevator and walking towards room 610. Other video footage showed Mr Crosbie walking to a lobby area on the sixth floor, adjust the chair and scroll through his phone for the next two hours. Terence Crosbie. Photograph: X The woman said she didn't know Mr O'Brien had a roommate. CCTV video and hotel records later supported Mr Crosbie's testimony that they met briefly at the bar and he was briefly in the room when the woman and Mr O'Brien first arrived, and that he 'read between the lines' and quickly left the room. She testified that after having sex with Mr O'Brien she went to the bathroom and left the light on. When she returned Mr O'Brien was already asleep and taking up the majority of the bed, so she got into the other bed and fell asleep, intending to leave and work from home the next day. She told the court she 'woke up to somebody on top of me' raping her, she told the court, in tears. 'This person was taller than Liam and was not bald and I could hear Liam snoring,' she said. The woman testified that the man, who prosecutors said was Mr Crosbie, also disparaged Mr O'Brien, while assaulting her, saying that Mr O'Brien 'can't even do this for you – what a loser'. She testified that she could feel his weight on top of her and she told him to 'stop!' But he didn't, the court heard. When she eventually managed to manoeuvre her legs off the side of the bed and break free, and started to collect her clothes, she testified that Mr Crosbie continued to follow her around the hotel room, trying to kiss her. She said she went to the bathroom and that Mr Crosbie tried to get in and 'was jiggling the handle' after she locked the door. Under cross-examination, defence attorney Mr Reilly noted that she initially reported that the assailant was about her height and her testimony did not include details about Mr Crosbie's birthmarks or tattoos. 'I was trying not to look,' she said. The prosecution noted that she texted a friend at 2.18am as she left the hotel. 'I hate everyone,' she wrote. 'What the f*** is wrong with people.' 'I woke up and a guy was inside of me telling me I wanted it and telling me how pathetic it was that his friend couldn't give that,' the court heard. She then walked home, changed and went to hospital, bringing the clothes she wore in the hotel. There she reported the rape. DNA analyst Alexis Decesaris testified that the evidence collected from the woman was 'consistent' with there being 'two individuals' separate from her who were both male. There was a high likelihood that one of those male profiles belonged to Mr O'Brien, the court heard, but due to the limited amount of material collected it was unclear if the second set of male DNA, obtained from the woman's genitals, was deposited by Mr Crosbie. The defence argued that the testing 'did not identify Terence Crosbie's DNA'. Prosecutors argued that the finding of two male profiles matched the woman's account. The jury heard from Mr Crosbie twice, in a recorded police interview before his arrest, and as the concluding witness when he took the stand in the trial. 'I 100 per cent didn't do this. I've done nothing wrong,' Mr Crosbie said. 'I had no physical or sexual contact with her at all.' He said he knocked on the door when he returned to the hotel and shouted for Mr O'Brien. He said the room was dark and he 'heard no reply'. He said he used the torch on this phone to find his way to his bed and the complainant wasn't there. 'There was nobody in my bed, my bed was empty,' he told the court. He said he brushed clothes off his bed, and crawled under the covers in his boxer shorts. About a minute and a half after he got into bed he testified that he heard someone 'rummaging around the room' and assumed the woman was collecting her things to leave. He disputed the woman's account that he called Mr O'Brien a loser; this was not 'an Irish term' that he would use, he argued. Mr Crosbie claimed he attempted to fly back to Dublin on an early flight home because he was 'scared like a rabbit in the headlights' after being questioned by police. When Mr Crosbie took the stand, prosecutors also played a portion of his interview with police that had been previously redacted in which he told detectives he had masturbated in the hotel room and asked whether his DNA could have got on the complainant that way. A pair of Mr Crosbie's underwear with semen on it was later collected as evidence. In cross-examination, prosecutors pointed out that Mr Crosbie would not have had time to masturbate alone in his room until after the alleged assault. Mr Crosbie's defence team stressed that his story about masturbation was 'hypothetical'. In closing arguments, prosecutor Erin Murphy told jurors that they 'might not agree' with or 'relate' to the complainant's choice to go to the hotel with Mr O'Brien but that it was 'her choice'. 'That doesn't mean that that man's hotel roommate gets to rape her,' she said. Mr Crosbie is not the 'unluckiest man in the world; he is the man who raped [the woman] and he is the man who got caught', she told the jury. Mr Reilly argued that prosecutors had not met their 'high burden' of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 'I suggest to you there are multiple reasonable doubts in this case,' he said.
RTÉ News
a day ago
- RTÉ News
Pope Leo warns politicians of the challenges posed by AI
Pope Leo has warned politicians of the challenges posed by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), addressing its potential impact on younger people as a prime concern. Speaking at an event attended by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and parliamentary delegations from 68 countries, Leo revisited a topic that he has raised on a number of occasions during the first few weeks of his papacy. "In particular, it must not be forgotten that artificial intelligence functions as a tool for the good of human beings, not to diminish them or even to replace them," Leo said at an event held as part of the Roman Catholic Jubilee or Holy Year. AI proponents say it will speed up scientific and technological progress and help people to carry out routine tasks, granting them more time to pursue higher-value and creative work. The US-born pontiff said attention was needed to protect "healthy, fair and sound lifestyles, especially for the good of younger generations." He noted that AI's "static memory" was in no way comparableto the "creative, dynamic" power of human memory. "Our personal life has greater value than any algorithm, and social relationships require spaces for development that far transcend the limited patterns that any soulless machine canpre-package," he said. Leo, who became pope in May, has spoken previously of the threat posed by AI to jobs and has called on journalists to use it responsibly.
