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Artificial intelligence is front and center in a murder appeal in Clayton County, Georgia. Aside from the sanctions imposed on various levels, the case is notable for bad citations that became part of the court’s official ruling, and which originated with the prosecution’s filings.
The same case first appeared here in Issue 3 (April 21), which was prior to Tuesday’s weigh-in from the state’s high court. Today’s issue includes Supplemental No. 01: Payne v. State, a full timeline and source map of how fabricated law moved from a prosecutor’s filing into a court order.
AI & Authors
Professionals are worried their writing will get falsely accused of being AI-written, so they’re deliberately making it messier and more “human.” The fear has potentially flipped the “Turing test” on its head, creating a situation where humans feel they have to prove they are human, rather than a machine having to prove it is human. On the opposite end of the spectrum, U.S. AI firm Anthropic, maker of the popular Claude chatbot, was ordered to pay $1.5 billion for downloading books from pirate libraries prior to training its chatbot (if you’re wondering, the training on such books survived review).
“This is the part that people don’t realize about AI. The first thing that AI is doing right now is creating an enormous number of jobs.”
Two U.S. cybersecurity professionals were sentenced to four years each for using ransonware on Americans while working in the industry. (DOJ)
Famed evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins spent three days talking to new friends “Claudia” and “Claudius.” (UnHerd)
About Plain Thinking
Grant Morgan is an attorney, former prosecutor and former Tribune Publishing reporter who covered Gary, Indiana, and Chicago’s northern suburbs. Plain Thinking covers AI and consequential technology affecting lawyers, police and courts.