Jim Acosta interviews ‘made-up’ AI avatar of Parkland victim Joaquin Oliver

Jim Acosta, former chief White House correspondent for CNN, stirred controversy on Monday when he sat for a conversation with a reanimated version of a person who died more than seven years ago. His guest was an avatar of Joaquin Oliver, one of the 17 people killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.

The video shows Oliver, captured via a real photograph and animated with generative artificial intelligence, wearing a beanie with a solemn expression. Acosta asks the avatar: “What happened to you?”

“I appreciate your curiosity,” Oliver answers in hurried monotone without inflection or pauses for punctuation. “I was taken from this world too soon due to gun violence while at school. It’s important to talk about these issues so we can create a safer future for everyone.” The avatar’s narration is stilted and computerized. The movements of its face and mouth are jerky and unnatural, looking more like a dub-over than an actual person talking.

Oliver was 17 years old when he was shot and killed in the hallway of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. According to Since Parkland, a reporting project about the victims of the shooting, the teenager loved writing and came to school that day, Valentine’s Day, with flowers for his girlfriend. He would have been 25 on Monday.

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