Arizona Supreme Court Uses AI Avatars to Improve Public Access

Photo : AP

The Arizona Supreme Court has created two computer-generated characters, named Victoria and Daniel, to share news about its decisions. This is the first time in the U.S. that a state court has used this kind of technology. These characters will act like spokespeople for the court, making it easier and quicker to share updates with the public.

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The use of computers in different fields, from surgery to searching on the internet, has grown a lot in recent years. Now, the Arizona Supreme Court is using this technology to make the legal process clearer and more trustworthy. The court hopes this will help people understand what the judges decide and why they make those decisions.

This idea became more important after a protest last April. People were upset when the Arizona Supreme Court decided to keep an old law that banned almost all abortions. Many people didn’t agree with the decision and wanted two of the judges to be removed.

Chief Justice Ann Timmer, who started leading the court last year, said that it is important to help people trust the court. She had already been thinking about using technology to explain court decisions, and the protests made her believe even more that the court needed to do a better job of explaining what it decides.

Victoria and Daniel were created using a program called Creatify. These characters will read the court's news releases, which explain the decisions made by the judges. Since October, the court has been sharing videos of these characters after each ruling. They hope these videos will help people understand the court’s decisions better. The court may also use these characters in other programs, like those that teach people about the law.

Making a video the normal way can take hours, but using computer-generated characters makes it much quicker. It only takes about 30 minutes to make a video this way. This saves the court a lot of time, and they may create more characters in the future.

Each judge who writes a decision works with the court’s team to make a script for the characters. The characters just read what they are given and do not try to explain the decisions on their own. The names and appearances of Victoria and Daniel were chosen to show different people, but the court is careful to make sure everyone knows they are not real people.

The court is also trying different ways to make the characters sound more natural, and they are working on versions of the videos in Spanish.

Some experts think the characters look realistic. Mason Kortz, a teacher at Harvard Law School, said that people might think the characters are real reporters, especially if they only read the text on the screen and don’t listen to the voices. He also said the court should make it clear that the characters are not real people, and the disclaimer should be easy for everyone to see.

Asheley Landrum, a teacher at Arizona State University, said the characters still feel like machines. She suggested that making the videos sound more like a real conversation could help people connect better with the characters. She also said that it’s important for the videos to seem fair and not biased.

Overall, the Arizona Supreme Court hopes this new idea will help people understand the law better and trust the decisions made by the judges. Although the project is new, it could be a big step toward using technology to make the legal system more open to the public.