People just can't stop using generative AI tools in legal proceedings, despite repeated pushback from frustrated judges. While AI initially appeared in courtrooms through bogus "hallucinated" cases the trend has taken a turn--driven by increasingly sophisticated AI video and audio tools. In some instances, AI is even being used to seemingly bring victims back from the dead. This week, a crime victim's family presented a brief video in an Arizona courtroom depicting an AI version of 37-year-old Chris Pelkey. Pelkey was shot and killed in 2021 in a road rage incident. Now, four years later, the AI-generated "clone" appeared to address his alleged killer in court.

A panel of New York judges condemned Jerome Dewald's use of an artificial intelligence-generated avatar as his attorney during an appearance in court on March 26. An artificial intelligence-generated avatar was the source of contempt inside a New York courtroom after judges quickly realized the attorney arguing a case in front of them was not real. The scene unfolded as Jerome Dewald, a plaintiff in an employment dispute, approached the stand of the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division's First Judicial Department on March 26. "The appellant has submitted a video for his argument," Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels said. "We will hear that video now."

Survivors of central nervous system injury commonly present with spastic hypertonia. The affected muscles are hyperexcitable and can display involuntary static muscle tone and an exaggerated stretch reflex. These symptoms affect posture and disrupt activities of daily living. Symptoms are typically measured using subjective manual tests such as the Modified Ashworth Scale; however, more quantitative measures are necessary to evaluate potential treatments. The hands are one of the most common targets for intervention, but few investigators attempt to quantify symptoms of spastic hypertonia affecting the fingers. We present the isometric force pillow (IFP) to quantify involuntary grip force. This lightweight, computerized tool provides a holistic measure of finger flexion force and can be used in various orientations for clinical testing and to measure the impact of assistive devices.

Northwestern University mechanical engineering professor Todd Murphey and his team are engineering robots that one might say could make robotic assistance as seamless as "humanly" possible. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the team is using novel algorithmic tools, such as a drawing robot, to develop the algorithms, or rules of behavior, that would greatly enhance a robot's ability to adapt to human unpredictability. Murphey points out that in order for robots to help people, they have to have at least a basic understanding of the types of tasks people can do. Some tasks, like lifting and placing an object, are close to the types of tasks that robots already do. Other tasks, like drawing, are harder for robots, partly because there are so many ways to get the same image.