August 6, 2025 • 25 mins
The reaction has been swift and fierce over former CNN Anchor Jim Acosta’s interview with an AI avatar representing Joaquin Oliver, who was 17 when he was shot and killed along with 16 others at Parkland High School 8 years ago. From everyday folks, to regarded members of the journalism community, Acosta has been accused of creating a stunt at the expense of a parent’s grief, but as Amy and T.J. discuss, when you look deeper into the story behind the story, you may change your entire tune.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, folks, it is Wednesday, August sixth, and Joaquin Oliver
died in the Parkland school shooting in twenty eighteen. But joking,
Oliver just did a new interview this week. How is
that possible? Because of AI and I think Robes, as
(00:24):
you put it, people are flipping out expressing their anger, disgust, confusion,
even throwing around the word grotesque over this interview being done.
But if you dig into this story just a little
bit more, I think a lot of folks, Robes might
have a change of heart, or at least a change
(00:44):
of tune. And with that, folks, welcome to this episode
of Amy and TJ and Robes. I think it's we
should declare now we're gonna try our damnedest to stay
dry eyed during this conversation in this episode because there
are some details about this. I know everybody's angry, we're
gonna ge into that, but there are some details about
this that are just.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Gutting, absolutely because at the heart of this, this is
about a mother and a father who lost their seventeen
year old son on Valentine's Day and it was his
twenty It would have been his twenty fifth birthday when
this interview took place, and you can't help but imagine
what that pain and that loss must feel like, and
(01:24):
the desperate feelings of this family of wanting to keep
their son's memory alive and his messaging in people's hearts,
and wanting to create some sort of awareness beyond what
we've already heard, because yes, the drumbeat has been going
on and on and on for years now about stopping
(01:48):
school shootings and if they continue to happen. So there's
passion and there's love and there's grief, and it's all
mixed up in this story.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
But it came with an immediate I think backlash. I
don't oftentimes like using that word because I think oftentimes
some publications would just pluck out some of the most
negative things people are saying online. This is one that
is getting attention not just of people commenting online, but
folks in the news industry and from the highest levels
(02:16):
and points and respected areas of the news industry questioning
why this should be done. So we should explain, first
of all, who did it. This is somebody that people
have been quite familiar with over the past couple of
decades from his time at seeing it.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yes, former CNN broadcaster anchored Jim Acosta. He was known
for his White House press briefing passion. I guess he
would often spar with the White House Communications director. So,
Jim Acosta a well known journalist in just about any circle.
But he has gone off on his own. Now. He
has a YouTube channel and he's created a sub stack.
(02:51):
What is it, a subscription, that's what they call it.
But a lot of folks who have left mainstream media
for whatever reason, Terry Moran, Don Lemon, you see them
popping up in these alternative places, including substack. And so
a lot of folks pointed to Jim Acosta conducting this
interview this week as simply a stunt, that it was
horrific journalism because he wasn't actually interviewing a person. He
(03:14):
wasn't actually interviewing someone who had gone through the Parkland
school shooting. This was an AI powered chat box powered
version of one of the young men who was murdered
on that day. So it was people talked of it
as being ghoulish. But some of the more respected journalism
(03:38):
minds and voices have said that this just isn't good
journalism period, and they were calling into question his decision
in not only conducting the interview but then putting it
out online. A lot of folks said, yes, this was
a stunt. You're trying to bring attention to yourself and
this is disgusting.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So Joaquin, well a reminder here that shooting in twenty
eighteen in Florida, Parkland Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. Seventeen
were killed in that shooting. Now, we've seen a number
of school shootings, Robed and I to compare parents in advocacy,
(04:15):
but this Parkland family of people who are impacted have
been staunched. They have been relentless, and all the people
impacted abound that down there. They have been screaming advocates
for gun control and something to be done for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yes, and what has been done almost nothing. I mean
we saw that obviously in some of the And again,
you're not trying to why I hear what you're saying.
We're not trying to compare school shootings to one another,
but obviously so many folks just point to this one
as just one of the more horrific ones.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So his family, his parents obviously have been very active.
I mean his dad, I saw some no He even
has been disruptive at a town. I think he interrupted
a speech by Biden once. So he's been out there,
very vocal and doesn't give a damn about mixing it up.
So you brought this to my attention. Earlier, I didn't
know all this was going on. But Jim Acosta comes
(05:12):
on his YouTube show. He teased it initially, but then
he came on this week. It was August fourth, which
was Monday. Monday, which was the kid's twenty fifth ye birthday.
So he comes on, he starts this way, today is
August fourth, fourth, That happens to be the birthday of
my first guest. Now, even that got my attention when
(05:35):
I first heard, because you were telling me what it was.
And then I hear that. And then he goes on
to say Joaqui and Oliver died in the Parkland shooting,
but his parents have created an AI version of their
son to deliver a powerful message on gun violence. Now,
a lot of people initially just saw the interview, or
they heard about it, or they saw clips and they
(05:58):
reacted maybe before they had that bit of information. Now
do you think robes people who? Do you think that
changes in some way? How one might feel about because
so much of the attention and anger was directed specifically
at Acosta without understanding that this was a request that
was specifically made by the family, right.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And I do believe that no one, no one is
faulting the father and the mother for creating this ai
version of their son. I think people kind of get that,
but they are faulting Jim Acosta for making a bad decision,
a bad journalism decision to go ahead and promote it,
tease it, and act as though he were interviewing someone
(06:40):
who has died. And that was what felt icky to
a lot of folks, because it felt like he was
in the promotion of the and the teasing of the interview.
It just felt sensational and obviously false in a way
because clearly he could not interview somebody who's no longer
with us, and so the.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
W would anybody do this? But the family says, what
this is specific and this is the point of what
they're doing, is to get attention, to draw attention to
the idea, and to advocate continue to advocate for gun control. So,
according to Jim Acosta, Manny Oliver, the kid's dad, who
since Jim Acosta covered that story. He said he's been
(07:19):
in touch with and considers his man of friend. So
when his friend, the dad of a kid who was
killed there, reaches out to Jim Acosta and said, can
you do this? Will you do this? Will you be
the first person to do an interview with this Ai
Joaquin that we created. How I mean, what do you say?
That's a difficult one. You can make a journalistic decision
(07:41):
and then you make one as a human being. Yes,
I hear that, and I think, well, wait a minute, Well,
wait a minute. How could you say no to that request?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Jim Acosta said, of course, I took him up on
the opportunity. Of course, you know, I understand perhaps even
giving it to try and seeing how it went and
how it felt and how it looked and how it appeared.
And for those of you who haven't watched the interview,
we absolutely suggest that you do because you'll have an
(08:12):
opinion about how it felt. I think the actual interview
itself did come off as bizarre and uncomfortable, and I
don't know, no one knows what they would do until
they were in the position. But as a journalist, I
can understand saying sure, let's try this, let's see what happens.
But upon actually seeing the interview, I don't know how
(08:36):
I would have felt about disseminating it and maybe even
giving it another shot, because the whole point was, yes
to raise awareness about the importance of gun safety, gun control,
trying to make sure that the tragedies that we've seen
for so many years here in this country stop or
at least we can do better. But the reality is
the only thing people are talking about is whether or
(08:59):
not using AI in this type of way is something
that we should be doing. They're questioning them, even the
morality around it, certainly the journalism around it, and so
the focus is now not on gun control, It's on
Jim Acosta making a bad decision as a journalist, or
maybe even more about just the uncomfortableness it is so
(09:21):
many people felt watching this interview, so it unfortunately, I
don't think the focus is where they wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And we should tell you as well what the interview
looked like. So Jim Acasta's sitting in an office of
somewhere at home presumably, and then on the other screen
in the two box, you see this kid joking Oliver.
He's wearing a skull cap and has a very emotionless
(09:48):
look on his face. It's robotic.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
He looks robotic, he sounds robotic. His mouth didn't move
exactly the way you would expect it to. It was strange.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So they explained the family that this AI version of
their son has been essentially uploaded with information and a
lot of information having to do with their son. I mean,
they actually have his voice because he had so many
recordings and things he had done, so they use that.
They use some of his posts online, his social media posts,
so they're actually upload it, if you will, information into
(10:18):
this AI Joaquin that was in their real son.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Right, So his writings. They found a lot of the
things over the years that he had written, and things
that were in his own words and in his own voice,
and put it into this chat box. I really don't
understand how any of this works, but they were able
to upload it, so they do say this is a
fairly accurate representation physically and audibly of their son, and
(10:46):
even the way he thinks and the way he spoke.
They really tried to get as close to their son
as possible.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
We should be. It is robotic. This is not even
if you had no idea what was going on. Knew
anything about this story, you would not think that was
a real, live human being. Now, the reaction to it
was pretty swift, Robes. You actually have looked at more
of the reaction than I have. But I'm just kind
of paraphrasing some things with somebody called it the puppet show.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yes, they said it was a macabre public sorry puppet show.
And many people also just said it was just disturbing.
They talked about how it was difficult to watch. I mean,
I certainly felt that way as well. It was I mean,
I just would describe it as uncomfortable. But people people
really went and felt passionately about this, saying it was disgusting.
(11:38):
That was one of the I think the strongest words used, disgusting.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And again, I guess it's the idea of bringing somebody
back from the dead, of having something speak for someone
who can't speak for themselves anymore. Obviously, you're not talking
to anybody with new or original thoughts in this AI thing.
But the dad made clear, Robes, because he talked to
Jim Acosta after this. He made clear, we are not
(12:06):
trying to I know this is AI. So don't anybody
start to think oh, this is just these parents are
grieving and they try to bring their son back from
the dead. They say, no, this is all about advocacy, period,
point blank. So I don't know if he's going to
be back out there doing other interviews, but they say
this is just the beginning. Now I'll go ahead on Oh.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, no, I'm just saying. And there are real concerns
about that technology because because it could be used to
create beliefs or even articulate things that the person in
real life would never have felt or said. So in
a way, people are saying it could be it could
even tarnish the memory of your past loved one, that
(12:48):
it's ghoulish because you are taking a lot of creative licensess.
As much as they could upload into this version of
their son, it's still not him. It's so it's just
it's it's confusing in it upsetting. A lot of people
said it was unsettling, which I get that, Okay, okay, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
The I didn't have a word myself for how I
felt watching it, and it was it was.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Just a little unsettling.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, it was unnerving. We're going to tell you about
some of the Q and A. The back and forth
the questions that Jim Acosta asked this AI Joaquin. We'll
let you hear that first, we're going to share that,
but then after that, we are going to tell you
what the mom, what the mom of Joaquin Oliver, has
(13:33):
been doing with the AI version of her son. And
when we heard that, that completely flipped the story for us,
and our eyes were full of tears.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Welcome back to this edition of Amy and TJ, where
we are talking about Jim Acosta's in with an AI
version of a young man, a seventeen year old who
died in the Parkland school shooting eight years ago. His
name was Joaquin Oliver, and his father, Manny Oliver, according
to Jim Acosta, and according to Manny himself, asked Acosta
(14:15):
to be the first person to interview this AI version
of his son. And a lot of folks have had
very strong reactions, just people who were watching, but also
some very prominent members of the journalism community who also
just feel like, this isn't proper, this isn't correct, This
is a slippery slope that we shouldn't be on as
(14:36):
journalists because this is just a version, a technical version
of what somebody might have been, but certainly not actually
interviewing the person. So it stirred up a lot of
feelings in a lot of reaction. But in terms of
the actual interview, we do have some of the verbatim,
and this was where it got uncomfortable. There was a
lot of things that were uncomfortable about it. But even
(14:57):
where the conversation went got strange, bizarre for me to witness.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It was.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
The whole point was to raise awareness about gun control
and gun safety and making sure these types of horrific
incidents don't continue to happen at the rate they're happening.
And yet we started talking about Star Wars and Lebron James.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
I mean they spoke on it later. They were trying to,
or at least Jim was saying that he felt like
he got to know Joaquin a little better.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That also feels strange.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I mean, you're finding something about a victim in the
background in that way. Again, I'm only trying to It's
the reason they upload, if you keep using that term,
but uploading this AI version with all this information from
the kids so he can respond to it. So he's
supposed to be a true version, if you will, of them.
But yeah, I didn't in listening to it, you don't
(15:52):
feel connected because it does feel so cold, it does
feel like just jilted it.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, I didn't feel emotional at all. I felt like, yeah, unsettled.
I love that word in the sense that that's exactly
how I felt. So Jim Acosta basically starts out asking
this version of Oliver, what happened to you?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Even that was that was strange, That.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Was jarring to me. Some of the questions were a
little jarring to me that one was among them.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
And what we.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Heard back from Joaquin Oliver was I appreciate your curiosity.
I was taken from this world too soon due to
gun violence while at school. It's important to talk about
these issues so we can create a safer future for everyone. Again,
that's even robotic in the response. So I'm not feeling anything.
I'm like to your point, I'm not feeling connected to him.
(16:45):
It just felt very, very strange.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And again I'm not sure what they are they. I
guess they know that the technology is going to come along.
I guess in coming years the way it has continued
to evolve, But is that part of it going to
get better? Maybe? But still the point is I think
to be a little dramatic to jar Us a little
bit and seeing someone almost advocate for themselves that hey,
(17:11):
I should still be here except for gun violence. We
need to do something about it. I don't know, maybe
that was the point of some of this, but the weird,
stuffy Yeah, he started asking about his favorite sport and
his favorite team, and then they had a long kind
of weird back and forth about Star Wars and it
sounded plucked straight from the Internet and AI bots.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right, So, if you're doing a Google search on Star
Wars and AI comes and gives you basically the information,
it's rounded up from all the different varying sources, and
it's you can see when it reads, it reads very robotic.
It reads very much like a computer. And that's exactly
what the Q and A felt like when Jim Acosta
was talking to this version of Joaquin. One of the
(17:52):
you know, and I don't know what the messaging is.
There's nothing new or nothing extraordinary or nothing emotional that
Joaquin was able to say that she aimed the conversation
in any way, because when Acosta asked him, what would
your solution be to gun violence? The AI version I
always want to say that the AI version of Joaquin
said a great, great question. I believe in a mix
(18:12):
of stronger gun control laws, mental health support, and community engagement.
We need to create safe spaces. Yeah, okay, okay, I
don't know how that advances anything beyond what we've already
discussed as a country.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Let me again, it's a dip. Look, we were talking
about gun control, we're talking about the Parkland shooting, and
we haven't talked about it in how long? I don't know.
I think maybe that is a part of it. It
is a part of to advocate, and part of advocacy
is simply getting it on somebody's radar, getting somebody's attention,
and they certainly succeeded in that. There was an interview
(18:49):
after the interview, so when the Ai Joaquin what they
call it Ai Joaquin, Aijuaquin, they keep calling him. When
that was done, Jim Consa then came back out and
actually did an you with the dad Manny Oliver and wrote,
this is where we learned a whole lot more about
the why they're doing it. But there was a detail
(19:11):
about Ai Joaquin that's not for public use, that's not
for him to be out and be an advocate. It's
for him to be a son to his mother. And
this point was gutting.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It certainly was so we heard Manny tell Jim, and
then he wanted to make the point that they're not
trying to bring their son back. They understand that he's gone,
but this is a way to hear him and to
even see him. And he described his wife, Patricia, and
he said that she will sit and interact with the
(19:47):
AI version of Joaquin for hours, and he said, like
any other mother, she loves hearing Joaquin say I love you, mommy,
And that is just it's what you do with that
so gutting, and yet at the same time it's so relatable.
(20:08):
Every one of us who are parents are putting ourselves
in that mother's position and wondering what we would do
if we had that technology available. How healthy it is,
how healthy it isn't. I don't know. But it's just
gutting to hear and.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I don't know, and I certainly hope nobody listening who
was right now is ever lost to child. But there
are folks who can understand this better than I what
that might be like. And this was a vibrant kid
who she I mean you at this point in your child,
when they're seventeen, they become almost friends to a certain degree.
(20:45):
They're different type of buds. She lost that. And as
soon as I saw that from the dad, my first thought,
my first image, I actually visualized a woman sitting with
a phone in her hand, just talking back and forth,
asking questions to a version of her child, and that
part of it, like any mom wants to hear somebody
your kids say I love you, mommy, to be able
to hear that from your child's voice one more time. Shit,
(21:08):
I don't know what you do with this, ah to
hear isn't that what every parent who's ever lost a
child man to just hear their voice one more time,
to hear them say this one more time, to hear
them do this one more time. Here he said I
love you, mommy, one more time, and they're using his
actual voice, and she is hearing it again. He Lord Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Right, I mean just too much. It is too much.
And you know whoa my God. And when Manny and
Jim obviously read and saw and heard all of the backlash,
all of the uproar about people taking issue with this
decision to have this interview and to post it. I
(21:45):
really liked what Manny said. He said, if the problem
you have is with the AI, then you have the
wrong problem. The real problem is that my son was shot.
I don't know how you combat that. I mean, I
thought that was just an incredibly powerful and simple way
(22:05):
to put it. And Acosta seconded that and said, I
think Joaquin's father makes a good point. I mean, he
was trying to defend his decision to do the interview
and then to upload the interview. But from the father's perspective,
it makes perfect sense. He said, he feels like his
son still had a lot to say, and this is
a version of him, and this is a way for
(22:27):
him to still have a voice. I understand that passion
and that need as a parent, as a father to
keep your son's voice alive.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It is. It's terrifying, Lord Rogues, how many we could
probably start naming them, the number of movies we've seen
with this type of plot. They're usually horror movies, yeah,
because they end horribly when someone apparent loses a child
and then has given some option for bringing that child
back from the dead, and we see the desperation in
(22:57):
film in art this I don't know. I'm thinking about
it as we speak. Could become a thing, could people
be a business could pop up to give people an
AI option for people that they have lost in their lives.
Do we want to die?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I don't know about the healing process. I don't know
what a mental health expert would say about that. I
don't know. And it's interesting you point out that this
is happening. So the Washington Post did an incredible article
about this and talked about just this past May. I
had never heard of this. Apparently the family of an
Arizona man that was killed in a road rage accident
used AI to recreate him in a video, so that
(23:36):
the AI version of this man addressed his killer in
court during the sentencing.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Hearing, and the judge allowed it and even applauded it.
To a certain.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Digress said, I loved that AI. The judge said, had
you heard of that story.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Beforehand before today?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
No? Yeah. So this is where we are technology wise,
and there's going to be a lot of.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Bigger issues to courts. Right.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
There are moral issues, there are are there are a
lot of issues to try and to figure out what's right,
what's wrong, and it might be it might It just
might be a personal opinion. I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
That's what we should come down. We should stop trying
to do right and wrong. It works for that person,
it doesn't work for that person, It doesn't work for you,
but it may work for somebody else. That's okay. So
this is just another example I always zoobes is just
when you know a lot of people are reacting, it's
okay to react. We have an opinion and reacted as
human beings to it. That's okay. But before you just
(24:36):
pounce and just say some of the most outlandish, rudest,
vulgar mean things to people, take a beat, just look
into it for a second, and you'll find somewhere in
there there is some humanity, and there is some reasoning.
There is some logic that maybe deserves your attention and
maybe deserves You've given people a fucking break.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, everyone was so quick to jump on Jimcosta that
he was doing this for his own personal gain, for
a publicity stunt, to increase his followers and downloads and
all of that, And there could have been an element
to some of that, yeah, that he was like, this
is an opportunity to grow my business now that I'm
no longer with a mainstream network, we understand that, we
get that, but it doesn't mean that was his sole motivation,
(25:20):
and it doesn't mean there wasn't something really powerful and
something really good behind it, including and sincere exactly where
you have a grieving set of parents who are desperate
to have their son's voice still matter and still count
and still have an impact on the world. And with that,
we want to thank you all for listening to us.
I'm Amy Robach alongside my partner t J. Holmes. We
(25:43):
hope you have a wonderful day. Everybody,
Hey, folks, it is Wednesday, August sixth, and Joaquin Oliver
died in the Parkland school shooting in twenty eighteen. But joking,
Oliver just did a new interview this week. How is
that possible? Because of AI and I think Robes, as
(00:24):
you put it, people are flipping out expressing their anger, disgust, confusion,
even throwing around the word grotesque over this interview being done.
But if you dig into this story just a little
bit more, I think a lot of folks, Robes might
have a change of heart, or at least a change
(00:44):
of tune. And with that, folks, welcome to this episode
of Amy and TJ and Robes. I think it's we
should declare now we're gonna try our damnedest to stay
dry eyed during this conversation in this episode because there
are some details about this. I know everybody's angry, we're
gonna ge into that, but there are some details about
this that are just.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Gutting, absolutely because at the heart of this, this is
about a mother and a father who lost their seventeen
year old son on Valentine's Day and it was his
twenty It would have been his twenty fifth birthday when
this interview took place, and you can't help but imagine
what that pain and that loss must feel like, and
(01:24):
the desperate feelings of this family of wanting to keep
their son's memory alive and his messaging in people's hearts,
and wanting to create some sort of awareness beyond what
we've already heard, because yes, the drumbeat has been going
on and on and on for years now about stopping
(01:48):
school shootings and if they continue to happen. So there's
passion and there's love and there's grief, and it's all
mixed up in this story.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
But it came with an immediate I think backlash. I
don't oftentimes like using that word because I think oftentimes
some publications would just pluck out some of the most
negative things people are saying online. This is one that
is getting attention not just of people commenting online, but
folks in the news industry and from the highest levels
(02:16):
and points and respected areas of the news industry questioning
why this should be done. So we should explain, first
of all, who did it. This is somebody that people
have been quite familiar with over the past couple of
decades from his time at seeing it.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yes, former CNN broadcaster anchored Jim Acosta. He was known
for his White House press briefing passion. I guess he
would often spar with the White House Communications director. So,
Jim Acosta a well known journalist in just about any circle.
But he has gone off on his own. Now. He
has a YouTube channel and he's created a sub stack.
(02:51):
What is it, a subscription, that's what they call it.
But a lot of folks who have left mainstream media
for whatever reason, Terry Moran, Don Lemon, you see them
popping up in these alternative places, including substack. And so
a lot of folks pointed to Jim Acosta conducting this
interview this week as simply a stunt, that it was
horrific journalism because he wasn't actually interviewing a person. He
(03:14):
wasn't actually interviewing someone who had gone through the Parkland
school shooting. This was an AI powered chat box powered
version of one of the young men who was murdered
on that day. So it was people talked of it
as being ghoulish. But some of the more respected journalism
(03:38):
minds and voices have said that this just isn't good
journalism period, and they were calling into question his decision
in not only conducting the interview but then putting it
out online. A lot of folks said, yes, this was
a stunt. You're trying to bring attention to yourself and
this is disgusting.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So Joaquin, well a reminder here that shooting in twenty
eighteen in Florida, Parkland Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. Seventeen
were killed in that shooting. Now, we've seen a number
of school shootings, Robed and I to compare parents in advocacy,
(04:15):
but this Parkland family of people who are impacted have
been staunched. They have been relentless, and all the people
impacted abound that down there. They have been screaming advocates
for gun control and something to be done for a
long time.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yes, and what has been done almost nothing. I mean
we saw that obviously in some of the And again,
you're not trying to why I hear what you're saying.
We're not trying to compare school shootings to one another,
but obviously so many folks just point to this one
as just one of the more horrific ones.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So his family, his parents obviously have been very active.
I mean his dad, I saw some no He even
has been disruptive at a town. I think he interrupted
a speech by Biden once. So he's been out there,
very vocal and doesn't give a damn about mixing it up.
So you brought this to my attention. Earlier, I didn't
know all this was going on. But Jim Acosta comes
(05:12):
on his YouTube show. He teased it initially, but then
he came on this week. It was August fourth, which
was Monday. Monday, which was the kid's twenty fifth ye birthday.
So he comes on, he starts this way, today is
August fourth, fourth, That happens to be the birthday of
my first guest. Now, even that got my attention when
(05:35):
I first heard, because you were telling me what it was.
And then I hear that. And then he goes on
to say Joaqui and Oliver died in the Parkland shooting,
but his parents have created an AI version of their
son to deliver a powerful message on gun violence. Now,
a lot of people initially just saw the interview, or
they heard about it, or they saw clips and they
(05:58):
reacted maybe before they had that bit of information. Now
do you think robes people who? Do you think that
changes in some way? How one might feel about because
so much of the attention and anger was directed specifically
at Acosta without understanding that this was a request that
was specifically made by the family, right.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And I do believe that no one, no one is
faulting the father and the mother for creating this ai
version of their son. I think people kind of get that,
but they are faulting Jim Acosta for making a bad decision,
a bad journalism decision to go ahead and promote it,
tease it, and act as though he were interviewing someone
(06:40):
who has died. And that was what felt icky to
a lot of folks, because it felt like he was
in the promotion of the and the teasing of the interview.
It just felt sensational and obviously false in a way
because clearly he could not interview somebody who's no longer
with us, and so the.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
W would anybody do this? But the family says, what
this is specific and this is the point of what
they're doing, is to get attention, to draw attention to
the idea, and to advocate continue to advocate for gun control. So,
according to Jim Acosta, Manny Oliver, the kid's dad, who
since Jim Acosta covered that story. He said he's been
(07:19):
in touch with and considers his man of friend. So
when his friend, the dad of a kid who was
killed there, reaches out to Jim Acosta and said, can
you do this? Will you do this? Will you be
the first person to do an interview with this Ai
Joaquin that we created. How I mean, what do you say?
That's a difficult one. You can make a journalistic decision
(07:41):
and then you make one as a human being. Yes,
I hear that, and I think, well, wait a minute, Well,
wait a minute. How could you say no to that request?
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Jim Acosta said, of course, I took him up on
the opportunity. Of course, you know, I understand perhaps even
giving it to try and seeing how it went and
how it felt and how it looked and how it appeared.
And for those of you who haven't watched the interview,
we absolutely suggest that you do because you'll have an
(08:12):
opinion about how it felt. I think the actual interview
itself did come off as bizarre and uncomfortable, and I
don't know, no one knows what they would do until
they were in the position. But as a journalist, I
can understand saying sure, let's try this, let's see what happens.
But upon actually seeing the interview, I don't know how
(08:36):
I would have felt about disseminating it and maybe even
giving it another shot, because the whole point was, yes
to raise awareness about the importance of gun safety, gun control,
trying to make sure that the tragedies that we've seen
for so many years here in this country stop or
at least we can do better. But the reality is
the only thing people are talking about is whether or
(08:59):
not using AI in this type of way is something
that we should be doing. They're questioning them, even the
morality around it, certainly the journalism around it, and so
the focus is now not on gun control, It's on
Jim Acosta making a bad decision as a journalist, or
maybe even more about just the uncomfortableness it is so
(09:21):
many people felt watching this interview, so it unfortunately, I
don't think the focus is where they wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And we should tell you as well what the interview
looked like. So Jim Acasta's sitting in an office of
somewhere at home presumably, and then on the other screen
in the two box, you see this kid joking Oliver.
He's wearing a skull cap and has a very emotionless
(09:48):
look on his face. It's robotic.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
He looks robotic, he sounds robotic. His mouth didn't move
exactly the way you would expect it to. It was strange.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
So they explained the family that this AI version of
their son has been essentially uploaded with information and a
lot of information having to do with their son. I mean,
they actually have his voice because he had so many
recordings and things he had done, so they use that.
They use some of his posts online, his social media posts,
so they're actually upload it, if you will, information into
(10:18):
this AI Joaquin that was in their real son.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Right, So his writings. They found a lot of the
things over the years that he had written, and things
that were in his own words and in his own voice,
and put it into this chat box. I really don't
understand how any of this works, but they were able
to upload it, so they do say this is a
fairly accurate representation physically and audibly of their son, and
(10:46):
even the way he thinks and the way he spoke.
They really tried to get as close to their son
as possible.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
We should be. It is robotic. This is not even
if you had no idea what was going on. Knew
anything about this story, you would not think that was
a real, live human being. Now, the reaction to it
was pretty swift, Robes. You actually have looked at more
of the reaction than I have. But I'm just kind
of paraphrasing some things with somebody called it the puppet show.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yes, they said it was a macabre public sorry puppet show.
And many people also just said it was just disturbing.
They talked about how it was difficult to watch. I mean,
I certainly felt that way as well. It was I mean,
I just would describe it as uncomfortable. But people people
really went and felt passionately about this, saying it was disgusting.
(11:38):
That was one of the I think the strongest words used, disgusting.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And again, I guess it's the idea of bringing somebody
back from the dead, of having something speak for someone
who can't speak for themselves anymore. Obviously, you're not talking
to anybody with new or original thoughts in this AI thing.
But the dad made clear, Robes, because he talked to
Jim Acosta after this. He made clear, we are not
(12:06):
trying to I know this is AI. So don't anybody
start to think oh, this is just these parents are
grieving and they try to bring their son back from
the dead. They say, no, this is all about advocacy, period,
point blank. So I don't know if he's going to
be back out there doing other interviews, but they say
this is just the beginning. Now I'll go ahead on Oh.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, no, I'm just saying. And there are real concerns
about that technology because because it could be used to
create beliefs or even articulate things that the person in
real life would never have felt or said. So in
a way, people are saying it could be it could
even tarnish the memory of your past loved one, that
(12:48):
it's ghoulish because you are taking a lot of creative licensess.
As much as they could upload into this version of
their son, it's still not him. It's so it's just
it's it's confusing in it upsetting. A lot of people
said it was unsettling, which I get that, Okay, okay, that's.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
The I didn't have a word myself for how I
felt watching it, and it was it was.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Just a little unsettling.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, it was unnerving. We're going to tell you about
some of the Q and A. The back and forth
the questions that Jim Acosta asked this AI Joaquin. We'll
let you hear that first, we're going to share that,
but then after that, we are going to tell you
what the mom, what the mom of Joaquin Oliver, has
(13:33):
been doing with the AI version of her son. And
when we heard that, that completely flipped the story for us,
and our eyes were full of tears.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Welcome back to this edition of Amy and TJ, where
we are talking about Jim Acosta's in with an AI
version of a young man, a seventeen year old who
died in the Parkland school shooting eight years ago. His
name was Joaquin Oliver, and his father, Manny Oliver, according
to Jim Acosta, and according to Manny himself, asked Acosta
(14:15):
to be the first person to interview this AI version
of his son. And a lot of folks have had
very strong reactions, just people who were watching, but also
some very prominent members of the journalism community who also
just feel like, this isn't proper, this isn't correct, This
is a slippery slope that we shouldn't be on as
(14:36):
journalists because this is just a version, a technical version
of what somebody might have been, but certainly not actually
interviewing the person. So it stirred up a lot of
feelings in a lot of reaction. But in terms of
the actual interview, we do have some of the verbatim,
and this was where it got uncomfortable. There was a
lot of things that were uncomfortable about it. But even
(14:57):
where the conversation went got strange, bizarre for me to witness.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
It was.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
The whole point was to raise awareness about gun control
and gun safety and making sure these types of horrific
incidents don't continue to happen at the rate they're happening.
And yet we started talking about Star Wars and Lebron James.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
I mean they spoke on it later. They were trying to,
or at least Jim was saying that he felt like
he got to know Joaquin a little better.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That also feels strange.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I mean, you're finding something about a victim in the
background in that way. Again, I'm only trying to It's
the reason they upload, if you keep using that term,
but uploading this AI version with all this information from
the kids so he can respond to it. So he's
supposed to be a true version, if you will, of them.
But yeah, I didn't in listening to it, you don't
(15:52):
feel connected because it does feel so cold, it does
feel like just jilted it.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yeah, I didn't feel emotional at all. I felt like, yeah, unsettled.
I love that word in the sense that that's exactly
how I felt. So Jim Acosta basically starts out asking
this version of Oliver, what happened to you?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Even that was that was strange, That.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Was jarring to me. Some of the questions were a
little jarring to me that one was among them.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
And what we.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Heard back from Joaquin Oliver was I appreciate your curiosity.
I was taken from this world too soon due to
gun violence while at school. It's important to talk about
these issues so we can create a safer future for everyone. Again,
that's even robotic in the response. So I'm not feeling anything.
I'm like to your point, I'm not feeling connected to him.
(16:45):
It just felt very, very strange.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
And again I'm not sure what they are they. I
guess they know that the technology is going to come along.
I guess in coming years the way it has continued
to evolve, But is that part of it going to
get better? Maybe? But still the point is I think
to be a little dramatic to jar Us a little
bit and seeing someone almost advocate for themselves that hey,
(17:11):
I should still be here except for gun violence. We
need to do something about it. I don't know, maybe
that was the point of some of this, but the weird,
stuffy Yeah, he started asking about his favorite sport and
his favorite team, and then they had a long kind
of weird back and forth about Star Wars and it
sounded plucked straight from the Internet and AI bots.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Right, So, if you're doing a Google search on Star
Wars and AI comes and gives you basically the information,
it's rounded up from all the different varying sources, and
it's you can see when it reads, it reads very robotic.
It reads very much like a computer. And that's exactly
what the Q and A felt like when Jim Acosta
was talking to this version of Joaquin. One of the
(17:52):
you know, and I don't know what the messaging is.
There's nothing new or nothing extraordinary or nothing emotional that
Joaquin was able to say that she aimed the conversation
in any way, because when Acosta asked him, what would
your solution be to gun violence? The AI version I
always want to say that the AI version of Joaquin
said a great, great question. I believe in a mix
(18:12):
of stronger gun control laws, mental health support, and community engagement.
We need to create safe spaces. Yeah, okay, okay, I
don't know how that advances anything beyond what we've already
discussed as a country.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Let me again, it's a dip. Look, we were talking
about gun control, we're talking about the Parkland shooting, and
we haven't talked about it in how long? I don't know.
I think maybe that is a part of it. It
is a part of to advocate, and part of advocacy
is simply getting it on somebody's radar, getting somebody's attention,
and they certainly succeeded in that. There was an interview
(18:49):
after the interview, so when the Ai Joaquin what they
call it Ai Joaquin, Aijuaquin, they keep calling him. When
that was done, Jim Consa then came back out and
actually did an you with the dad Manny Oliver and wrote,
this is where we learned a whole lot more about
the why they're doing it. But there was a detail
(19:11):
about Ai Joaquin that's not for public use, that's not
for him to be out and be an advocate. It's
for him to be a son to his mother. And
this point was gutting.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It certainly was so we heard Manny tell Jim, and
then he wanted to make the point that they're not
trying to bring their son back. They understand that he's gone,
but this is a way to hear him and to
even see him. And he described his wife, Patricia, and
he said that she will sit and interact with the
(19:47):
AI version of Joaquin for hours, and he said, like
any other mother, she loves hearing Joaquin say I love you, mommy,
And that is just it's what you do with that
so gutting, and yet at the same time it's so relatable.
(20:08):
Every one of us who are parents are putting ourselves
in that mother's position and wondering what we would do
if we had that technology available. How healthy it is,
how healthy it isn't. I don't know. But it's just
gutting to hear and.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I don't know, and I certainly hope nobody listening who
was right now is ever lost to child. But there
are folks who can understand this better than I what
that might be like. And this was a vibrant kid
who she I mean you at this point in your child,
when they're seventeen, they become almost friends to a certain degree.
(20:45):
They're different type of buds. She lost that. And as
soon as I saw that from the dad, my first thought,
my first image, I actually visualized a woman sitting with
a phone in her hand, just talking back and forth,
asking questions to a version of her child, and that
part of it, like any mom wants to hear somebody
your kids say I love you, mommy, to be able
to hear that from your child's voice one more time. Shit,
(21:08):
I don't know what you do with this, ah to
hear isn't that what every parent who's ever lost a
child man to just hear their voice one more time,
to hear them say this one more time, to hear
them do this one more time. Here he said I
love you, mommy, one more time, and they're using his
actual voice, and she is hearing it again. He Lord Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Right, I mean just too much. It is too much.
And you know whoa my God. And when Manny and
Jim obviously read and saw and heard all of the backlash,
all of the uproar about people taking issue with this
decision to have this interview and to post it. I
(21:45):
really liked what Manny said. He said, if the problem
you have is with the AI, then you have the
wrong problem. The real problem is that my son was shot.
I don't know how you combat that. I mean, I
thought that was just an incredibly powerful and simple way
(22:05):
to put it. And Acosta seconded that and said, I
think Joaquin's father makes a good point. I mean, he
was trying to defend his decision to do the interview
and then to upload the interview. But from the father's perspective,
it makes perfect sense. He said, he feels like his
son still had a lot to say, and this is
a version of him, and this is a way for
(22:27):
him to still have a voice. I understand that passion
and that need as a parent, as a father to
keep your son's voice alive.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It is. It's terrifying, Lord Rogues, how many we could
probably start naming them, the number of movies we've seen
with this type of plot. They're usually horror movies, yeah,
because they end horribly when someone apparent loses a child
and then has given some option for bringing that child
back from the dead, and we see the desperation in
(22:57):
film in art this I don't know. I'm thinking about
it as we speak. Could become a thing, could people
be a business could pop up to give people an
AI option for people that they have lost in their lives.
Do we want to die?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I don't know about the healing process. I don't know
what a mental health expert would say about that. I
don't know. And it's interesting you point out that this
is happening. So the Washington Post did an incredible article
about this and talked about just this past May. I
had never heard of this. Apparently the family of an
Arizona man that was killed in a road rage accident
used AI to recreate him in a video, so that
(23:36):
the AI version of this man addressed his killer in
court during the sentencing.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Hearing, and the judge allowed it and even applauded it.
To a certain.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Digress said, I loved that AI. The judge said, had
you heard of that story.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Beforehand before today?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
No? Yeah. So this is where we are technology wise,
and there's going to be a lot of.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Bigger issues to courts. Right.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
There are moral issues, there are are there are a
lot of issues to try and to figure out what's right,
what's wrong, and it might be it might It just
might be a personal opinion. I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
That's what we should come down. We should stop trying
to do right and wrong. It works for that person,
it doesn't work for that person, It doesn't work for you,
but it may work for somebody else. That's okay. So
this is just another example I always zoobes is just
when you know a lot of people are reacting, it's
okay to react. We have an opinion and reacted as
human beings to it. That's okay. But before you just
(24:36):
pounce and just say some of the most outlandish, rudest,
vulgar mean things to people, take a beat, just look
into it for a second, and you'll find somewhere in
there there is some humanity, and there is some reasoning.
There is some logic that maybe deserves your attention and
maybe deserves You've given people a fucking break.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, everyone was so quick to jump on Jimcosta that
he was doing this for his own personal gain, for
a publicity stunt, to increase his followers and downloads and
all of that, And there could have been an element
to some of that, yeah, that he was like, this
is an opportunity to grow my business now that I'm
no longer with a mainstream network, we understand that, we
get that, but it doesn't mean that was his sole motivation,
(25:20):
and it doesn't mean there wasn't something really powerful and
something really good behind it, including and sincere exactly where
you have a grieving set of parents who are desperate
to have their son's voice still matter and still count
and still have an impact on the world. And with that,
we want to thank you all for listening to us.
I'm Amy Robach alongside my partner t J. Holmes. We
(25:43):
hope you have a wonderful day. Everybody,
Hosts And Creators
Amy Robach
T.J. Holmes
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