By Manny Marotta

A new online project meant to increase public access to the Supreme Court using AI has launched.

On The Docket uses authentic archival audio and AI-generated video (screencap at right) to engage Americans interested in the workings of a Supreme Court that still shuns video. The project, led by Oyez found Jerry Goldman and University of Minnesota Prof. Tim Johnson, recreates opinion announcements from major cases through visually engaging, transparently-labeled digital media.

Given that this project intersects with Fix the Court’s mission, I explored what it currently offers. Here’s what I discovered:

The Good

It’s no secret that today’s media audiences have shrinking attention spans and increasingly favor short-form video. Many, if not most, social media platforms are optimized for short-form video.

We therefore applaud this effort to bring SCOTUS content to a wider audience, especially since it stems from well-regarded legal academics whose stated goal is public education about the Court.

More importantly, these videos are not conjured from whole cloth: they’re merely artificial visualizations of genuine archival audio. AI isn’t hallucinating cases and citations to those case (an increasingly common problem in the legal field), and everything except for the visual rendering is authentic. In that regard, On The Docket succeeds.

The Not As Good

The videos posted by On The Docket so far portray somewhat eerie, uncanny avatars of the justices. It feels a bit like playing SCOTUS: The Video Game rather than watching a representation of actual humans. The founders say they did this to help audiences see that the videos are not authentic, but it takes a little while to get used to.

The Verdict

The reality is that if On The Docket hadn’t pursued this idea, someone else would have, and their intentions might not have been as academically principled.

AI is now so pervasive that within minutes, anyone with rudimentary tech skills can produce a video depicting the justices and present it as genuine. So it’s encouraging to see On The Docket try to channel this technology responsibly and transparently label its content.

With that said, real courtroom cameras remain superior because they convey real events in a literal form. Body language communicates real meaning in a courtroom, and audiences deserve to see authentic gestures rather than choppy, computerized movements.

On The Docket is not a fix to the Supreme Court’s cameras ban, but it does serve as a reasonable placeholder until the public can view proceedings as they actually occur.