In USA, AI used for the first time to "resurrect" a murder victim in court
The digital twin of the murdered appeared in court against the killer. Photo: YouTube channel Stacey Wales
An unprecedented case in judicial practice occurred in the American state of Arizona – a murder victim «spoke» at the trial against their murderer using artificial intelligence technology.
The digital avatar of Christopher Pelkey, a U.S. Army veteran who died in 2021 as a result of a road conflict, addressed the court during the sentencing of Gabriel Orcasitas. The murderer received the maximum sentence – 10.5 years in prison.
The idea of creating a digital twin of the brother was proposed by the victim's sister, Stacey Wails, together with her husband, who works in the IT field. Neural network models Stable Diffusion and speech synthesis technologies were used to recreate the image.
The video address began with a warning that viewers were seeing a version of Chris Pelkey regenerated with AI. After demonstrating a real archival fragment with the deceased, the digital avatar delivered a speech written by his sister.
"Gabriel Orcasitas, the man who shot me. It’s a pity we met under those circumstances. In another life, perhaps we could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and in God, Who forgives," said the digital Pelkey.
The use of AI technologies in this case did not provoke legal disputes. Arizona has the Victims' Bill of Rights that allows relatives to choose how to present their statements in court.
Judge Todd Lang noted that the video made a strong impression on him. He emphasized that the words of the digital Pelkey expressed not a desire for revenge, but forgiveness, reflecting the nobility of the entire victim's family.
Attempts by the defense to use the call for forgiveness to mitigate the sentence were unsuccessful. Wails later admitted that their goal was to "bring Christopher back to life, even if just for a few minutes" and to show his true nature.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that AI was urging teenagers to kill their parents.
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