Tuesday, March 25, 2025

How soon before "video evidence" is not allowed in court?

How long before all of that AI computational power is used to edit Law Enforcement body-cams, Ring doorbell footage and video recorded on smartphones that is immediately beamed-up to the cloud?

As a side-note:

Would the race-riots of 2020 happened if Derek Chauvin's expressions had been less "gleeful" and smug?

The potential for AI to shape narratives is frightening. Recorded images used to be evidence and conclusions were drawn from them, but we long since passed the point where the conclusion can be formulated before the event and the images crafted to support that concussion.

An AI trailer for a (spoof?) movie titled "Karen"

A humorous AI piece that is aimed at entertainment...but look at Fiona's facial expressions. The facial expressions of the AI creation is more convincing than a human actress.

15 comments:

  1. ERJ, probably sooner than we think. It will only take one case where the video is found to be manipulated by AI and there an "unfortunate" outcome to ban it all together.

    The same logic applies to electronic conversations, electronic written materials...really, anything that is not analogue.

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  2. Wonder if AI could be used to ID AI fakes.

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  3. I agree the ban will be for all digital evidence, not just video. Deepfakes can be made to 'prove' any claim desired by either side.

    For that matter I don't trust 'eyewitness' testimony at this point, a jury member isn't allowed to directly question someone on the stand to determine their biases. If you can't produce physical evidence my verdict would be 'not guilty'

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    1. most of the time a jury should find "not guilty", not because of the guilt of the accused, but because the law is a ass. fija.org

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  4. Video will continue to be admissible, but expect a lot more time being needed to be spent setting forth the foundation and authenticity of any video footage or image being introduced into court. There will also be the need to counter claims the footage is doctored or manufactured.

    Video evidence is certainly highly useful evidence, and given the ubiquity of cameras these days will continue to be so, but the ease with which it can now be manipulated is going to lead to the need for experts to be able to demonstrate the video is both verifiable as unaltered and reliable in order for it to be admitted as evidence for whatever it is being used to try and prove.

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  5. Unsigned, unauthenticated video is susceptible to editing and fakery.
    Only the most expensive of surveillance cameras and bodycams implement strong in-camera digital signing to ensure that recorded video is tamper-evident.

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  6. Is there an email that can be used to contact you? Tim W.

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    1. one.time.use.erj@gmail.com

      I am much less than diligent at monitoring this email. I MIGHT look at it once every three months. I will monitor it for the next week or so, and then pull down the periscope.

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  7. what about the lack of video evidence? like in prison suicide cases

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  8. The Race Riots of 2020 would have happened regardless....they were planned and the death of George Floyd was the convenient vehicle.
    Th e build up started nearly 2 years before in Social Media, and it was going to happen because of SOME incident.

    The entire thing was planned, executed and paid for.

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    1. "The Thanksgiving Turkey never has more evidence of the farmer's eternal benevolence than he has on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving."

      I am suspicious when anti-business, Blue States are suddenly acting benevolently toward businesses, but only for certain industries. The "data center" industry is one of those favored industries. It is not a "Unionized" industry that supports lots of dues-paying members. It isn't "green".

      Why would politicians that criminalized the January 6th panty-raid and choreographed the George Floyd narrative be interested in data-centers and AI? Hmmmm?

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  9. Eventually, if not already, it will be impossible to differentiate between real and manufactured video. And the courts will of course lag FAR behind the curve in addressing this fact.

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  10. Eventually, if not already, it will be impossible to differentiate between real and manufactured video. And the courts will of course lag FAR behind the curve in addressing this fact.

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  11. The Reginald Denny trial already did that...

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  12. Wasn't there quite a bit of back-and-forth during the Rittenhouse trial about some video that had been "enhanced"? I believe there were some parts of it where his rifle was reversed from how a right-handed person would carry it, indicating that part of the video had been altered. I'm not sure whether the video was ruled inadmissible or not, but there was debate. It's already happening.

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