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A Chandler, Arizona courtroom recently witnessed the use of artificial intelligence to resurrect the voice of a deceased man, Christopher Pelkey, during the sentencing of his killer, Gabriel Horcasitas.
Pelkey, shot dead in a 2021 road rage incident, was digitally recreated using AI to deliver a scripted “impact statement” written by his sister, Stacey Wales.
Horcasitas, 50, was sentenced to 10.5 years for manslaughter after shooting Pelkey, 37, when the latter approached his car in a heated confrontation.
“To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me: it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” according to the AI-generated video, featuring a digitally aged photograph of Pelkey.
“In another life, we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and God, who forgives. I always have, and still do,” the video said, which moved the judge, who openly praised the AI technology, to hand down a sentence a full year longer than prosecutors requested.
WATCH:
AZ Family reported:
A judge sentenced 50-year-old Gabriel Horcasitas to 10 and a half years in prison last week. He noted the forgiveness expressed in Pelkey’s AI statement during the sentencing.
“I want the world to know Chris existed,” Wales says. “If one person hears his name or sees this footage and goes to his Facebook page or looks him up on YouTube, they will hear Chris’s love.”
Wales herself is not ready to forgive Horcasitas, but when she wrote the script, she says she knew her brother would speak of forgiveness. “He stood for people, and for God, and for love,” she says.
Arizona State professor of law Gary Marchant says the use of AI in general is becoming more common in the courts. “If you look at the facts of this case, I would say that the value of it overweighed the prejudicial effect, but if you look at other cases, you could imagine where they would be very prejudicial,” he says.
Marchant is part of an Arizona Supreme Court committee that is evaluating AI and how it’s used in court.
“We’re trying to address how we should change the rules for AI evidence. The judicial system is moving to try to address this as proactively as possible. The problem, of course, is there are so many different possibilities here, some of which are more acceptable than others. How you draw the line is going to be very difficult, but certainly the courts seem to be moving forward to try to deal with this,” Marchant said.
