Will there ever be a time when artificial intelligence may be used as corroborating evidence in estate litigation?
Estate litigators are familiar with section 13 of the Evidence Act, which states that, “an action by or against the heirs, next of kin, executors, administrators or assigns of a deceased person, an opposite or interested party shall not obtain a verdict, judgment or decision on his or her own evidence in respect of any matter occurring before the death of the deceased person, unless such evidence is corroborated by some other material evidence”.
Couple this requirement with the advancement of posthumous artificial intelligence.
According to a recent article on CNN, an AI start-up has been extracting information from the online presence of a deceased person. Information gained from text messages, tweets, and Facebook posts were used to create a computerized chatbot based off the deceased’s personality.
According to the CNN author, several conversations were had with the deceased (as a chatbot), and believed that the deceased’s ethos was well captured. In fact, the author notes that one such friend of the deceased was texting with the chatbot for 30 minutes without realizing that the discussion was with the chatbot.
It is interesting to wonder whether AI will ever develop to the point where a litigator will rely on information from a chatbot as corroborating evidence.
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