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Arizona’s highest court has created a pair of AI-generated avatars to deliver news of every ruling issued by the justices, marking what is believed to be the first example in the U.S. of a state court system tapping artificial intelligence to build more humanlike characters to connect with the public.A court in Florida uses an animated chatbot to help visitors navigate its website, but the Arizona Supreme Court is charting new territory with the creation of Victoria and Daniel. Made of pixels, the two avatars have a different job in that they serve as the face of news coming from the court just as a spokesperson made of flesh and blood would dobut faster.The use of AI has touched nearly every profession and discipline, growing exponentially in recent years and showing infinite potential when it comes to things as simple as internet searches or as complex as brain surgery. For officials with the Arizona Supreme Court, their venture into AI is rooted in a desire to promote trust and confidence in the judicial system. What helped solidify the court’s need for more public outreach? There was a protest outside the state Capitol last April and calls for two justices to be booted after the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a Civil Warera law that banned nearly all abortions, except when a woman’s life is in jeopardy, could be enforced. Emotions flared on both sides of the issue.When Chief Justice Ann Timmer took over the court last summer, she made public trust a key pillar of her platform. She had already been thinking about ways to reach out to the public using digital media for a few years, and the abortion ruling, among other rulings, helped her to solidify the idea that the court needs to be part of the narrative as people learn about opinions and what they mean.“We serve the public better by saying, OK, we’ve issued this decision,” she said. “Now, let us help you understand what it is.”Timmer told the Associated Press earlier this year that if the court had to do the abortion ruling over again, it would have approached the dissemination of information differently. In a Wednesday interview, she said that a news release and avatar video could have helped the public better understand the legal underpinnings of the lengthy decisionpossibly including what it didn’t do, which she said some misunderstood.“We got a lot of backlash for it and probably deservedly so, in terms of how can we complain that people don’t understand what we did when we didn’t really do enough to give a simplified version,” she said in the January interview, explaining that people want to know the basis for the court’s decisions and what they can do, such as lobbying state lawmakers for whatever changes in law would support their positions.Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed a repeal of the ban last May, and in November, Arizona voters approved a constitutional amendment expanding abortion access up to the point of fetal viability. Who are Daniel and Victoria, and how do they work? Created with a program called Creatify, Daniel and Victoria in a way bring to life the court’s news releases. Videos featuring one or the other are being posted for every ruling by the high court, and may be used for Access to Justice projects, community programs and civics information in the future.The court has been sending out releases since October to summarize and explain rulings. After seeing success with the releases, it began exploring options to convey that information through video.The AI-generated avatars were the most efficient way to produce videos and get the information out, said court spokesperson Alberto Rodriguez. Producing a video usually can take hours, he said, but an AI-generated video is ready in about 30 minutes. The court might introduce more AI-generated reporters in the future, Rodriguez said in a news release.The justice who authors the legal opinion also drafts a news release, the wording of which must be approved by the entire bench. The justice then works with the court’s communications team to craft a script for the avatarsthe avatars aren’t interpreting original court decisions or opinions, Rodriguez said.Daniel and Victoria’s names and physical appearances were designed to represent a wide cross-section of people, Rodriguez said. He said they aren’t meant to come off as real people and the court emphasizes their AI origins with disclaimers. The court is exploring different emotional deliveries, cadences, and pronunciations as well as Spanish translations for the avatars, Rodriguez said. Will the avatars resonate with their audience? Mason Kortz, a clinical instructor at the Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, described the court’s new cyber employees as “quite realistic.” While their voices might give them away, he said some people could be fooled into thinking that Daniel and Victoria are real reporters if viewers are only reading the subtitles and looking at the characters’ movements and facial expressions.Kortz also said it would be better for the language of the disclaimer that is in the videos’ text description to be featured more prominently.“You want to make it as hard as possible for someone to advertently or inadvertently remove the disclaimer,” he said.Asheley Landrum, associate professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, said the avatars feel robotic. She said a format that mimics real dialogue and storytelling might be more engaging than an AI reading of a news release.“Because it’s not just about using AI or even creating videos,” she said, “but about doing so in a way that really resonates with audiences.”Still, it’s fine line. She said engaging characteristics can help to build trust over time but the danger is that content could appear biased. Sejal Govindarao, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
China’s energy and auto giant BYD has announced an ultrafast EV charging system that it says is nearly as quick as a fill up at the pumps.BYD, China’s largest EV maker, said Monday that its flash-chargers can provide a full charge for its latest EVs within five to eight minutes, similar to the amount of time needed to fill a fuel tank. It plans to build more than 4,000 of the new charging stations across China.Charging times and limited ranges have been a major factor constraining the switch from gas and diesel vehicles to EVs, though Chinese drivers have embraced that change, with sales of battery powered and hybrid vehicles jumping 40% last year.BYD’s news appeared to give Tesla a jolt on Monday, as the U.S. EV maker’s share price sank 4.8%. BYD, which stands for build your dreams, began presales of its Han L and Tang L models, which are upgraded versions of earlier models.The Chinese company started out making batteries and has been refining its battery and energy storage technology while building an auto empire that is expanding outside China. It says its 1 megawatt flash chargers can provide power for 400 kilometers (nearly 250 miles) in five minutes.Ultrahigh voltage and a large current are required to maximize charging speeds, BYD’s founder Wang Chuanfu said in a statement.“To completely solve users’ anxiety over charging, our pursuit is to make the charging time for EVs as short as the refueling time for fuel vehicles,” Wang said.The company also said that its flash-charging system relies on silicon carbide power chips with voltage levels of up to 1,500V that it developed on its own. Its Blade lithium-ion phosphate battery is perhaps the world’s safest and most efficient EV battery, with Tesla opting to use it in some of its EVs, industry analyst Michael Dunne said in a recent report.BYD reported it made just over 4.3 million “new energy vehicles” last year, up 41% from a year earlier, including 1.8 million battery electric vehicles and 2.5 million plug in hybrids. The price of its shares traded on China’s smaller market in Shenzhen has surged nearly 50% in the past six months.While BYD’s fanciest, latest premium models are expected to sell for up to about $40,000, it also makes much less expensive EVs including the Seagull, which sells for around $12,000 in China.BYD barely nudged ahead of Tesla in production of battery-powered EVs in 2024, making 1,777,965 compared with Tesla’s 1,773,443.In early January, Tesla said its sales dropped in 2024, a first in more than a dozen years, as rivals such as BMW, Volkswagen and BYD gained market shares with competitive EVs.But BYD has weaknesses as well, Dunne said, noting that JD Power’s 2024 China New Energy Vehicle Initial Quality Study ranked the BYD Seal and BYD Song Plus battery electrics at the bottom of its rankings. Elaine Kurtenbach, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
Greenpeace used malicious and deceptive tactics to disrupt the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and keep it from going forward, an attorney for the company behind the project said Monday.But attorneys for the environmental advocacy group said during their closing arguments that Greenpeace had little involvement with the 201617 protests that are central to the case.A North Dakota jury began deliberating Monday after a weekslong trial over Dallas-based Energy Transfer’s argument that Greenpeace defamed the company and disrupted the project. What is the case about? The energy company and its subsidiary Dakota Access accused Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA, and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, civil conspiracy, trespass, nuisance, and other acts, and is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.Nine jurors and two alternates heard the case after it went to trial in late February. Their verdict will include what damages, if any, to award.Trey Cox, an attorney for the pipeline company, highlighted damages per claim totaling nearly $350 million.The lawsuit is linked to the protests against the oil pipeline and its controversial Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline as a risk to its water supply. The pipeline has been transporting oil since mid-2017. What did the company say? Cox said Greenpeace exploited a small, disorganized, local issue to promote its agenda, calling Greenpeace “master manipulators” and “deceptive to the core.”Greenpeace paid professional protesters, organized or led protester trainings, shared intelligence of the pipeline route with protesters, and sent lockboxes for demonstrators to attach themselves to equipment, Cox said.Among a number of alleged defamatory statements were that the company deliberately desecrated burial grounds during construction, which Cox said was done to harm Energy Transfer’s reputation in the international investment community. The company made 140 slight adjustments to its route to avoid disturbing sacred or cultural sites, he said.Greenpeace’s “lies impacted lenders,” Cox said. Energy Transfer suffered $96 million in lost financing and $7 million in public relations costs, he said.The pipeline was delayed by five months, and the company lost $80 million because it couldn’t turn on the spigot on January 1, 2017, when oil was to start flowing, Cox said.He asked the jury to find the Greenpeace entities liable.“It needs to be done for Morton County. It needs to be done for Morton County’s law enforcement and the next community where Greenpeace exploits an opportunity to push its agenda at any cost,” Cox told the jury, referring to the county where the protests were centered. How did Greenpeace respond? Attorneys for Greenpeace said Energy Transfer didn’t prove its case or meet its legal burden for defamation or damages, that Greenpeace employees had little or no presence or involvement in the protests, and that Greenpeace had nothing to do with the company’s delays in construction or refinancing.A letter signed by leaders of Greenpeace International and Greenpeace USA and sent to banks involved in the project’s construction loan contained the alleged defamatory statement about desecrating burial grounds, which Cox equated to digging up dead bodies.Greenpeace International attorney Courtney DeThomas said the other side hasn’t shown how the one act of signing a letter with 500 other organizations damaged them, and that the letter would have been sent to the banks with or without Greenpeace’s name on it. Thousands of protesters were already at Standing Rock by the time the letter was signed, she said.Greenpeace USA attorney Everett Jack Jr. disputed the company’s claims as including costs from months before and years after the protests, with no witnesses to say that the Greenpeace entities were the cause.Jack also said no law enforcement officers or any of Energy Transfer’s security personnel testified that Greenpeace was the cause of any violence or property destruction, or was a leader, organizer or instigator in the protests. He said law enforcement “did a phenomenal job of watching the protests.”Greenpeace representatives have criticized the lawsuit as an example of corporations abusing the legal system to go after critics and called it a critical test of free speech and protest rights. An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the case is about Greenpeace not following the law, not free speech. Jack Dura, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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