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 from John Q. Barrett, law professor at St. Johns University and expert on Justice Robert H. Jackson (1941-54), I recently listened to a recording of Warren in which he court announced in 1954. This would be unremarkable. If only recorders weren’t banned in court back then.
And no one could have sneaked in a small recorder, which didn’t exist in the pre-transistor era.
Such ‘recordings’ can be wonderful teaching tools. But the technology that spawned this also has dangerous potential.
A transcript of what Warren actually said was available, which did not exactly reflect the text of the Court’s opinion. There were recordings of Warren speaking in other situations. Someone read the transcript aloud and an artificial intelligence (AI) program converted the recording into 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’ his team’s oral arguments in court.
The virtual “resurrection” of Earl Warren and Thurgood Marshall is a fascinating development with legitimate applications. However, this technology also has serious disadvantages.
It could make it impossible to be confident in what we do to belong is real. In an age of photoshopping, seeing is no longer believing, and now AI can also undermine our confidence in the reality of what we hear.
Perhaps ways will be found to determine if a recording is real, but AI programs could then figure out how to get around it. Legislation requiring the equivalent of watermarking in AI recordings could help, but would not protect us from people willing to break the law.
Imagine what doctored recordings could do to political campaigns! An AI-spoofed vote of Joe Biden was already used in robocalls that discouraged turnout in New Hampshire’s 2024 Democratic primary.
On a personal level: phone scammers pretending 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 panic. We need to ask the caller questions that only the person they claim to be can answer. These questions shouldn’t be obvious, like birthdays; information that is often available everywhere.
This should help even scammers who don’t use AI technology, one of whom recently called me and said in a pathetic tone, “Hello, Grandpa.”
I asked, “Is that you, David?” Amazingly, he admitted he was David. Unfortunately for this crook, I don’t have a grandson named David.
Now that Earl Warren has been resurrected, it may be a good time to reconsider his involvement in Brown v. Board of Education. Looking back seventy years later, we may think the 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 the age of 63 before the court could decide the case. President Dwight Eisenhower then appointed Earl Warren to replace him.
Warren did not have a good record on racial issues. As governor of California during World War II, he had ensured that all Japanese-Americans from the West Coast states were forced into “relocation camps.”
But Judge Felix Frankfurter considered Warren a major improvement. In a private commentary 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 he led the Supreme Court in its unanimous decision to strike down segregated schools.
Vinson actually had a decent track record in previous civil rights cases. Whether Brown would have been different had he survived is still debated.
Paul F. deLespinasse is a retired professor of political science and computer science at Adrian College. He can be reached at pdeles@proaxis.com.
This article originally appeared in The Daily Telegram: Paul deLespinasse: AI lets Earl Warren speak from beyond the grave
