In what appears to be a landmark decision, a judge presiding over a triple murder case in Washington state has banned the use of a video enhanced by artificial intelligence.

The ruling, signed by Superior Court Judge Leroy McCullogh in King County, Washington, is being reported as a first-of-its-kind in an era when the U.S. and other nations struggle to get a grip on how AI should and shouldn’t be used in society.

“This Court finds that admission of this Al-enhanced evidence would lead to a confusion of the issues and a muddling of eyewitness testimony, and could lead to a time-consuming trial within a trial about the non-peer-reviewable-process used by the AI model,” McCullough wrote.

The video in question was taken with a smartphone during an altercation in 2021 at the La Familia Sports Pub and Lounge in Des Moines that ended with three people dead. The defendant, 46-year-old Joshua Puloka, is charged with the murders, as well as the injuries of two others. His lawyers have claimed he used his gun in self-defense when he was shot at attempting to deescalate the situation.

This was all caught on video, a video defense attorneys believed might be improved with some editing. They hired a video production editor in an effort to “supercharge” the video with AI enhancements. It’s believed the technology used was a product of Texas-based Topaz Labs, a firm that claims it can “maximize video quality” with AI.

Though the effort by the defense was an attempt to make the video images clearer, the prosecution argued that the changes rendered it “inaccurate, misleading and unreliable.” Judge McCullogh agreed, stating that such software relies on “opaque methods to represent what the AI model ‘thinks’ should be shown.”

It’s no surprise McCullogh was wary about allowing it in his court. For the past few years, the public and lawmakers alike have had to get used to software that has become increasingly good at creating realistic deepfake content. A growing number of U.S. lawmakers have called for more stringent regulation of AI and AI models that can produce believable alternate realities in video or photographic form.

NBC reported that the video in the murder case was analyzed by forensic experts at the FBI, who claimed the enhanced video contained visual data that was not part of the original recording. They explained that while the enhanced version “may appear more pleasing to the eye of a lay observer,” it contained “the illusion of clarity and increased image resolution that does not accurately represent the events of the original scene.”

Puloka’s lawyers shot back, claiming the changes stated by the forensic analysts were “exaggerated and overblown.” Nonetheless, it’s unlikely that defense teams will attempt something similar in the future if the opportunity arises.

Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm/Unsplash