A MAN killed in a road rage incident has spoken in court beyond the grave via an eerie AI video message.
Chris Pelkey was virtually resurrected to deliver a victim impact statement directly to his killer.
The move is a first in judicial history, the state where Mr Pelkey lived – and possibly a first for all of the US too.
In the video Mr Pelkey addresses Gabriel Horcasitas, who shot him dead after a dispute in 2021, aged 37.
“It is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,”; the AI version of Mr Pelkey said.
“In another life, we probably could’ve been friends.
“I believe in forgiveness and in God who forgives. I always have and I still do.”;
Mr Pelkey’s sister Stacey Wales came up with the idea when gathering victim statements from friends and family.
“We received 49 letters that the judge was able to read before walking into sentencing that day,”; she told FOX 10.
“But there was one missing piece. There was one voice that was not in those letters.”;
Her husband and a friend then went through the “painstaking”; work of finding a way to make the video a reality using AI.
His brother John said: “To see his face and to hear his voice say it.
“Just waves of healing washed over my soul. Because that was the man that I knew.”;
Judge Todd Lang welcomed the AI, saying: “I loved that AI, thank you for that.
“As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness.
“I feel that that was genuine.”;
Mr Horcasitas was sentenced to10-and-a-half years in prison for manslaughter.
It comes as a federal judicial panel gathered last week over proposals to regulate the introduction of AI-generated evidence at trial.
The U.S. Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules in . has voted to seek public comment on a draft rule.
