An AI avatar made to look and sound like the likeness of a man who was killed in a road rage incident addressed the court and the man who killed him: “To Gabriel Horcasitas, the man who shot me, it is a shame we encountered each other that day in those circumstances,” the AI avatar of Christopher Pelkey said. “In another life we probably could have been friends. I believe in forgiveness and a God who forgives. I still do.”
It was the first time the AI avatar of a victim—in this case, a dead man—has ever addressed a court, and it raises many questions about the use of this type of technology in future court proceedings.
There’s a marked difference, though, the Moon can’t actually generate words that you can digest. Some people might think the Moon is speaking to them, but their brains are just spicy - it is not the same as a machine.
The machine isn’t really speaking to them either, it’s just generating responses through a pattern recognition engine. There’s no “there” there.
Might as well pray to a parrot.