John Roberts lays an egg
The year 2023 was coming to an end. Millions of people scurried to finish end-of-the-year projects. Amid all of the swirling business that was the end of another year, one man sat alone.
He sat in his office, weighing his own end-of-the-year responsibility. It was to be a report. He’d been writing them for many years now. He was the architect of the year-end report, the summing up of yet another year over. This was to be his 19th report.
But what to write about? The man had a choice. There were many options. This particular year had been a tough one indeed. So out of all the possible subject matters, all the choices, the man, Chief Justice John Roberts, finally chose He chose artificial intelligence. That is the subject of my first article of 2024 — only not in the way one might think.
Artificial intelligence has been in the news a lot lately. Will it be a beauty or a beast? How will AI change the world around us? Differing opinions abound.
Roberts professed, in his report, to be concerned. Charming! The Chief Justice chose to write about something that, while important, certainly does not sum up the court’s 2023.
“Legal research,” Roberts wrote, “May soon be unimaginable without it.” (AI.) “It risks invading privacy interests and dehumanizing the law.” So serious the Chief Justice sounds! “Dehumanizing the law!”
It’s smoke and mirrors. It’s an optical illusion. The laws of the extreme court have already BEEN dehumanized. Justice Roberts did not say a word about Ginni Thomas and the fact that one of his justices has a possible insurrectionist for a wife. He said nothing about the scandals Thomas and Alito have had. Chief Justice Roberts said nothing of the mess he and his group made with abortion. He said nothing about a code of conduct that has dominated conversations about the Court this past year.
“Machines cannot fully replace key actors in court.” I think that depends on one’s definition of “machines.” I submit that “key actors” have already been replaced by machines with much artifice. These machines are the property of their makers, the Federalist Society.
These machines have the artificial intelligence that come with the corruption of values and the determination to twist oneself into a pretzel to please its owners.
John Roberts had a choice before him. Sitting in that office, mulling over what to write about, he could have used REAL intelligence. Instead, he chose to deflect with a sterile report in a vain attempt to not have to answer for the mess that his court has become.
He could have written — the truth. Or he could lose himself in denial. That is what he did. This is an article about artificial intelligence, alright, but not of the AI of computers. It is about the artificial intelligence of artificial justices and the fake attempts to draw attention away from the truth and where the court is right now.
