In my last post, we discussed the use of AI for a victim impact statement. This time we want to review when a plaintiff tried to use an AI avatar to make an argument in court. You read that right. Let’s get into it.

What case was this?

Jerome Dewald has a complaint against Massachusets Mutual Insurance Company and MassMutual Metro New York regarding his employment. This case was was being seen in a New York appellate courtroom.

Did he have permission to introduce an AI generated presentation?

Um, yes, but maybe not really. Dewald, who is representing himself, had requested that he be able to utilize video to make his arguments. Dewald has issues with speaking for long stretches of time due to an earlier diagnosis of throat cancer. So, the judge allowed him to present his arguments via video.

So if he asked and was granted permission, what was the problem?

It seems that the judges were not prepared to see the avatar, at least not one that looked so different from Dewald. The judges quickly stopped the use of the video shortly after it started. The judges may have expected Dewald himself to show up in the video to make the arguments as one judge commented that he spoke for himself in other meetings.

Why would he use AI?

Well, it turns out that Dewald is the founder of a start up AI company, Pro Se Pro. His company’s goal is to help people represent themselves in court cases. Some have argued that this was a stunt meant to bring more attention to his business. However, Dewald insists that his difficulty with speech was the main motivation for the use of AI. For various reasons, he wasn’t able to make a video with a personalized avatar, so he used a standard one, which led to the controversy.

A number of articles are reporting this as a case of an AI “lawyer”. While the avatar was meant to take Dewald’s place, it was just meant to follow a pre-written script. It doesn’t sound like the avatar was to make arguments on the fly, just present Dewald’s remarks. If Dewald had been able to get a personalized avatar that looked like him, this may have been quite a different story.

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