• joshchandra@midwest.social
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    19 hours ago

    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.

      • joshchandra@midwest.social
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        19 hours ago

        Perhaps; it seemed like they knew the decedent well enough to know that he would appreciate this, from everything that the article says. With that said, I also won’t be surprised if templates for wills or living trusts add a no-duplication statement by default over the coming years.

        • turmacar@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          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.

          • joshchandra@midwest.social
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            3 hours ago

            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.