T
he sales pitch?
“Step into a thrilling courtroom drama where the audience is the jury. Listen to testimonies, analyze evidence, and ultimately decide… guilty or not guilty?”
As someone not just with aspirations of becoming a lawyer, but also a guilty-as-charged binge watcher of hilariously inaccurate legal dramas, this was a sales pitch I couldn’t resist.
In “The Jury Experience – Death by AI: Who Pays the Price?” production, the character of Alex Rivers dies in an accident involving a self-driving taxi car controlled by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The car is similar to a Tesla Robotaxi, but is more advanced and futuristic, requiring no human intervention at all. This car makes decisions on its own, and, in trying to avoid one danger, it caused a fatal outcome.
A court trial is held to decide who is responsible for the death. Different sides argue their case and the audience votes on a ruling. Performances will be held at Carleton University’s Kailash Mital Theatre on January 11, February 15, April 26 and June 26. Tickets are available at multiple locations through The Jury Experience website.
Scott, the prosecutor of the case, says the company that made the AI, and its CEO Anthony Hulmer, are to blame.
Kate, representing the defence, argues that the AI followed its programming and that there was no intended harm from anyone; she asserts that any human would have made the same decision.
Witnesses explain how the technology works, what choices the AI made, and what safety measures were (or were not) in place. The jury must then decide whether Hulmer is guilty, and if so, the creator can be punished for the mistakes of his AI creation.
The main point of the story is to make people think about responsibility, ethics, and justice when machines—not humans—make life-and-death decisions.
Overall, the case is quite exaggerated, with excessive objections, quiet quips from the witness at the prosecution’s competency, outbursts from the prosecution, and a level of petty remarks that would never fly in reality. In a real court, many of these actions would be classified as badgering and hearsay.
But this isn’t reality, and suspending one’s disbelief made for an interesting—albeit questionably accurate—watch.
In terms of technological accuracy, I must say I was mildly impressed. Terms like “deep learning” and “level 5 autonomous cars” were mostly used correctly. Furthermore, the trial explained dilemmas in AI technology, like the “black box” tendencies of machine learning, with an accuracy I did not expect.
There were even references made to classic technological anecdotes like the Deep Blue chess-playing AI beating World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
This was honestly surprising. As someone who has run events where technological scripts were written by non-technical people, you can tell when it happens. Often, terms and anecdotes are hilariously and inaccurately used.
Every time the defence attempted to show condolences, it felt dishonest. To give the benefit of the doubt, this might have been done intentionally to highlight the defendant’s rich and pompous nature. However, the performances felt overall quite flat, leaving a lot to be desired, so it’s hard to say if this was intentional.
I believe the flatness of the performance cannot be blamed on the actors, but instead on the story itself. At one point, there was a throwaway line when the victim’s wife was testifying, where the prosecutor says, “I understand more than you can imagine.” It felt like there were attempts at a deeper story for some characters, but they were not explored.
Somehow, in the logic of this play, the CEO was being accused of the murder before the person who took the automated taxi. The passenger of the automated taxi being completely absent from the narrative seems like an illogical decision at first. Obviously, with the case being as absurd as it was, it was meant to be a question of putting the AI on trial.
This is a growing concern in today’s world, with new real-world comparable cases. In 2019, a Tesla using the autopilot feature killed a pedestrian and injured another. A federal jury found the car company partially responsible, according to court documents.
Aside from speeding cars and pedestrian deaths, there are other cases revolving around this question of how society can hold AI accountable. ChatGPT has been blamed for causing a unique form of psychosis, aptly called “ChatGPT-induced psychosis” by Psychology Today. Due to the program’s ability to simulate realistic conversation, people can get deeply attached and start to believe their chatbots are conscious, allowing AI to influence their decisions. Most importantly, ChatGPT and the like are not conscious, so when people treat them like friends, fortune-tellers, and psychiatrists, mental health risks greatly increase.
The question of AI accountability is a very real problem that this play struggles to take seriously—not that it was designed to take itself seriously.
It takes a complex question, and reduces it to a mere take on the trolley problem. This reduction was made abundantly clear by about halfway into the show, when the defence literally stopped and explained the trolley problem in a speech to the audience and jury.
The question at play was if we should, to quote the prosecutor, “turn our streets into testing grounds,” for a future technology that could someday bring good.
Despite the prosecution making quite an emotional case, there is a logical counterargument to it about human accuracy and reaction times. The defence also reiterated its stance on the necessity of making a sacrifice of one to save many more, as well as if we can charge the creator for mistakes made using technology.
The audience sympathized with the prosecution’s case, with a consistent response of ~80% deeming the defendant guilty pre- and post-trial at the Carleton showing I attended.
Do I recommend this experience?
Yes, as a fun thing to see, but not as a serious play.
This isn’t the only Jury Experience out there, since the creators also offer “The Jury Experience: Million-Dollar Murder or Web of Lies.” If ethical dilemmas involving AI aren’t the immersive court dramas you’re looking for, this one is described as “a love triangle. A multimillion-dollar divorce. A homicide. Is the accused a cold-blooded killer or a pawn in a much bigger game?”
If you’re looking for a high production value, accuracy, or an amazing story, I would advise you to keep looking. But, if you are looking for a fun night, and maybe an introduction to a moral dilemma you can research later at length, then I would definitely recommend this.
