That should never be allowed in court. What a crock of shit.

Thanks for sharing; I thought this was a fascinating read, especially since it ended on a positive note and not pure condemnation. It seems totally Black Mirror-esque, but I do wonder how many of the commentators here attacking it didn't read the article. The family obviously didn't make this decision lightly, given how much work it took to create it, and even the judge appreciated the novel approach. This is probably one of the best-case use scenarios relative to the abyss of unstoppable horror that awaits us.

Fascinating but also kind of creepy.

It was a victim impact statement, not subject to the rules of evidence. The shooter had already been found guilty, and this was an impact statement from the victim’s sister, to sway how the shooter should be sentenced. The victim’s bill of rights says that victims should be allowed to choose the method in which they make an impact statement, and his sister chose the AI video.

I agree that it shouldn’t be admissible as evidence. But that’s not really what’s being discussed here, because it wasn’t being used as evidence. The shooter was already found guilty.

If my family hired an actor to impersonate me at my killer's trial and give a prepared speech about how I felt about the situation it would be thrown out of court.

If my family hired a cartoonist or movie studio to create a moving scene with my face recreated by digital artists and a professional voice actor to talk about my forgiveness for my death, it would be thrown out of court.

That they used a generative program to do it and the Judge allowed the video to influence the sentence as if it were a statement by the deceased is deeply troubling.

Apparently, it was required to be allowed in that state:

Reading a bit more, during the sentencing phase in that state people making victim impact statements can choose their format for expression, and it's entirely allowed to make statements about what other people would say. So the judge didn't actually have grounds to deny it.
No jury during that phase, so it's just the judge listening to free form requests in both directions.

It's gross, but the rules very much allow the sister to make a statement about what she believes her brother would have wanted to say, in whatever format she wanted.

From: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/18471175

influence the sentence

From what I've seen, to be fair, judges' decisions have varied wildly regardless, sadly, and sentences should be more standardized. I wonder what it would've been otherwise.