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AI is coming for the Supreme Court. The court is an institution steeped in tradition and resistant to quick changes in the way that it does things. But like it or not, the justices are about to see artificially created versions of themselves - basically avatars - come to life. Now the avatars will say things that the justices actually said in court, comments that until now only people in the courtroom could hear. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg has this story.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Northwestern Professor Jerry Goldman has been creating ways to make the Supreme Court more accessible to the public since 1996, when his nonprofit project, entitled OYEZ, went live on the internet. The site sought to provide audio of the court's oral arguments and opinion announcements in every case decided by the Supreme Court dating back to 1955, when the court began taping. Here, for instance, is Justice William Brennan announcing an opinion in an important libel case in 1967.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WILLIAM BRENNAN: Although honest utterance, even if inaccurate, may further the fruitful exercise of the right of free speech, it does not follow that the lie knowingly and deliberately published should enjoy like immunity.
TOTENBERG: Professor Goldman's OYEZ Project was a huge deal because until the early 1990s, the public had no idea the court had been taping its proceedings, and the process for preserving the tapes was so helter-skelter that many of those recordings were lost. What's more, access to the audio was severely limited. Indeed, nobody outside the court had access until months and months after the case was heard and decided. Only at the beginning of the next term were the audio tapes generally made available publicly from the prior term.
It wasn't until 2020 when COVID-19 shut down the country that the court was essentially forced to allow every oral argument to be broadcast live, with the justices linked by phone line and the public able to listen in. And after the pandemic, the justices continued the live audio. That has left just one part of the court's public business unavailable on a same-day basis, the all-important announcements of decisions summarized by the justices from the bench, as well as on occasion, oral dissents.
To this day, the old system of limiting access until the following term remains intact so that only those people actually in the courtroom can hear and see the drama of the day. Now Goldman's team is experimenting with making that drama ever more real, even though the audio remains unavailable for months. They're using AI to recreate what the people in the courtroom not only heard but what they saw. Professor Goldman.
JERRY GOLDMAN: Since it's public in the courtroom, it should be public for everybody. That's simple.
TOTENBERG: But with no cameras allowed in the Supreme Court, how is Goldman creating the visuals? Answer - essentially with avatars. And it wasn't easy, says University of Minnesota Professor Timothy Johnson, one of the architects of the project, along with Spooler, an AI design company.
TIMOTHY JOHNSON: We have a number of bloopers where they would give the AI robot a particular command and it would do something completely uncanny.
TOTENBERG: In the end, by using photos and videos from the justices' public appearances, they were able to create video versions matched with the existing real audio. There were, of course, ethical questions they had to tackle. Should they make the video look completely real or do something to tell the viewer it is not? In the end, they opted for slightly cartoonizing (ph) the video and clearly marking it AI generated so viewers would know what was real, the audio, and what was not, the video.
In their first foray into this brave, new world, for instance, they've created a visual of Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's 6 to 3 decision that granted then-former President Trump and all future former presidents complete immunity from prosecution for any core official actions while in office, no matter how nefarious.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN ROBERTS: The president is the only official who, alone, composes an entire branch of government. He has duties of unrivaled gravity and breadth.
TOTENBERG: And if the president must make decisions, knowing that he could be prosecuted for those decisions after leaving office, said Roberts...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROBERTS: There is great risk that his decision-making will be distorted while he is in office.
TOTENBERG: Following Roberts is Justice Sonia Sotomayor in dissent.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SONIA SOTOMAYOR: This new official acts immunity now lies about like a loaded weapon for any president that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival or his own financial gain above the interests of the nation.
TOTENBERG: This, of course, is radio. So if you want to see the video, go to npr.org. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF AYANNA SONG, "GIRLFRIEND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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