AI allows Chief Justice Earl Warren to speak from beyond the grave

Seventy years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. The unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education was read in court by its author, Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Thanks to Information received by John Q. Barrett, professor of law at St. Johns University and expert on Judge Robert H. Jackson (1941-54), I recently heard a recording of Warren announcing the court’s decision in 1954. This would not be noteworthy if tape recorders had not been banned in court at that time.

And no one could have gotten a tiny tape recorder, which didn’t exist in the pre-transistor era.

“Recordings” like this can be wonderful educational tools. But the technology that produced it also has dangerous possibilities.

A transcript of what Warren actually said, without exactly following the text of the Court’s opinion, was available. There were recordings of Warren speaking in other situations. Someone read the transcript aloud and an artificial intelligence (AI) program converted the recording in Warren’s own voice.

Thurgood Marshall—later the court’s first black member—was the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. The same AI process was used to “record” the oral arguments from your team before the court.

The virtual “resurrection” of Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall is a fascinating development with legitimate uses. However, this technology also has serious disadvantages.

It could make it impossible to be sure that what to hear it is genuine. In an age of Photoshop, seeing is no longer believing, and now AI can also undermine our confidence in the reality of what we hear.

Maybe ways will be found to check whether a recording is genuine, but AI programs can then figure out how to avoid them. Legislation requiring the equivalent of watermarks on AI recordings might help, but it wouldn’t protect us from people willing to break the law.

Imagine what fake recordings can do political campaigns! A fake Joe Biden voice has already been used in robocalls, discouraging voter participation in the 2024 New Hampshire Democratic primary.

On a personal level, phone scammers pretend to be relatives who have gotten into trouble and need money – fast! – are already using AI technology.

Fortunately, we can protect ourselves if we receive such a call. We must avoid panicking. We must ask the caller questions that only the person he claims to be could answer. These questions should not be obvious like birthdays, information that is often widely available.

This should help even scammers who don’t use AI technology, one of whom recently called me saying, pathetically, “Hello, Grandpa.”

I asked, “Is that you, David?” Surprisingly, he admitted to being David. Unfortunately for this crook, I don’t have any grandsons named David.

With AI having brought Earl Warren back to “life,” it might be a good time to review his involvement in Brown v. Wade. Looking back 70 years later, we may feel that his unanimous conclusion was inevitable, but the truth is more complicated.

When the case was first argued, the chief justice was Fred Vinson, a conservative Southerner, who some feared would convince the court to uphold segregation. But Vinson died unexpectedly at age 63, before the court could decide the case. President Dwight Eisenhower then named Earl Warren to replace him.

Warren did not have a good record on racial issues. As governor of California during World War II, he supported forcing all Japanese Americans from West Coast states into “relocation” camps.

But Judge Felix Frankfurter found Warren to be a vast improvement. Commenting privately on Vinson’s death, Frankfurter said, “This is the first indication I’ve ever had that there is a God.”

Warren later regretted supporting the “relocation” of Japanese Americans and, as chief justice, led the Supreme Court to its unanimous decision to strike down segregated schools.

In fact, Vinson had a decent track record in previous civil rights cases. Whether Brown would have been different had he survived is is still being debated.

Paul F. deLespinasse is a retired professor of political science and computer science at Adrian College. He can be contacted at pdeles@proaxis.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Paul deLespinasse: AI allows Earl Warren to speak from beyond the grave