'Law & Order' Presages an Ominous Future

By Dustin Rowles | TV | January 26, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | January 26, 2024 |

This week’s Law & Order is more interesting for the legal issues that it presents — where is the line between reality and fabrication — than the murder investigation, which is clearly inspired by Sam Altman and ChatGPT. Here, the CEO of a technology company is murdered because an employee allegedly shot him after being fired from the company. Under the direction of the tech company, the employee, Ben Stafford, created an AI so powerful that it replaced both his job and that of his co-workers. Stafford took out his anger on the CEO with a gun.

The first legal issue presented is in the confession. There’s plenty of evidence to connect Stafford to the murder, but he also confesses to the killing. However, Detective Riley implied that he would give Stafford Adderall — a drug to which the suspected was addicted — if he confessed. The judge correctly deemed that the confession was coerced and threw it out. You can’t promise drugs in exchange for information.

However, it’s what made the next issue so compelling. Stafford’s attorney did a bang-up job of casting doubt on whether Stafford murdered the CEO by shifting blame to the CEO’s business partner, James Sawyer, who was about to be ousted from the company but, instead, became its new CEO after the murder. The defense was convincing enough that it seemed likely the jury would find Stafford not guilty.

The case shifted again when Sawyer found last-minute evidence from a camera outside of the ATM where the CEO was shot clearly showing that Stafford pulled the trigger. How convenient that the other guy being accused of the murder would find that video evidence, right? The prosecution wrestled with whether the video was a deep fake or not after testing the footage proved inconclusive. However, Stafford — who is left-handed — shot the CEO with his right hand, which led ADA Nolan Price to believe that it was likely a deep fake.

DA Jack McCoy insisted that Price use the video evidence anyway. He reasoned that the truth was the most important thing, and they knew — based on his suppressed confession — that Stafford had murdered the CEO. ADA Price pushed back, reasoning that it would open the door to future cases where either side could use a convincing AI-generated deepfake to prove either guilt or innocence. McCoy didn’t care. He said the burden was on the defense to prove it was a deepfake. The defense could not, and Stafford was found guilty.

It’s a just result, but as Price told ADA Maroun, “What happens next time or the time after that? This job was hard enough when we knew the difference between real and fake. But now?”