Extract from Jimmy Hoover’s article “Can AI Give You a Seat Inside the Supreme Court?“
As the U.S. Supreme Court has embraced live audio broadcasting of oral arguments, one practice remains stubbornly stuck in the 18th century.
Since the days of Chief Justice John Jay, those interested in seeing members of the high court read their opinions aloud must still nab a seat in the court’s limited public gallery. There are audio recordings of opinion announcements but, for reasons the Supreme Court generally declines to articulate, those are made public only months after the fact through the National Archives.
To fling open the courthouse doors, a group of Supreme Court watchers and designers is now using artificial intelligence to generate videos of the justices’ avatars reading their opinions aloud as part of a provocative project called “On the Docket.” While AI is used to create the visuals of the scene, the audio comes from the actual recordings of opinion announcements taken from the Archives.
