AI gives voice to shooting victims
Slain Parkland teen heard in message to lawmakers
Six years after he was murdered in a mass shooting at a Parkland high school on Valentine’s Day, the voice of Joaquin Oliver, with an assist from an artificial intelligence program, is calling congressional members to demand gun safety action on Capitol Hill.
“It’s been six years and you’ve done nothing, not a thing to stop all the shootings that have continued to happen since,” said Oliver’s AI-generated message. “I died that day in Parkland, my body was destroyed by a weapon of war.”
The message from Oliver, who died at 17 years old in the Feb. 14, 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is one of six AI-generated voices on The Shotline website. All six are people who were killed in gun-related incidents.
People who access the site can hear the story of each of the six victims. Then they can send any or all six messages to their local congressional member by inputting their zip code.
The AI-voice campaign was launched on the morning of Feb. 14, the sixth anniversary of the high school attack. According to Shotline, more than 85,800 calls had been sent to congressional representatives through their website as of Feb 21.
The website also provides a grim tally of gun violence data, such as noting there were 656 mass shootings in 2023 and 43,036 gun violence deaths.
In describing Oliver, the Shotline website reads that he was known for his “loyalty, sharp writing skills, and a love for his Venezuelan heritage.” The website includes information on the March for Our Lives campaign and to Change the Ref, an organization founded by Oliver’s parents to promote gun control.
Manuel Oliver, Joaquin’s father, said that “gun violence is a constant fight” and it’s important to make calls to repre
sentatives to prompt action, and the AI program is a way for victims to do so as well.
Oliver said he’s heard criticism about launching voice messages with artificial intelligence, either from accusations that he’s trying to bring his son back to life or that these voice messages are uncomfortable.
“I know that my son is not coming back to life. Actually, my son and his legacy, they’re keeping me alive,” Oliver said. “The real reason for those comments is that people are feeling uncomfortable with this, but they’re not feeling uncomfortable with the shootings. So we have to choose our level of being uncomfortable or not.”
The Shotline campaign isn’t the first time that Oliver has been depicted as if in real life using technology. In 2020, Oliver’s parents released a video using AI in which their son, with realistic language and life-like mannerisms, begged people to cast a vote in that year’s election.
Oliver was one of 17 students and staff members killed in the Parkland school massacre. The shocking carnage ignited national calls for gun violence prevention and forced a slew of school safety measures approved by the Florida Legislature and signed into law by then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
It also spurred a youth movement demanding more gun safety measures that culminated in the March For Our Lives rally in Washington, D.C., which was led and organized by students and families impacted by the Parkland shooting.
One of the organizers from the postParkland mobilization era is now in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Orlando, said he first got involved in politics when he was 16 years old because he “didn’t want to get shot at school.” Frost said that he spoke to families impacted by gun violence and who are desperate for action on gun safety.
“It’s uncomfortable. It’s disturbing,” Frost said regarding the launch of the AI message effort. “But what’s more uncomfortable and disturbing is the fact that their kids died in a pool of their own blood on the floor of their school.”
Other people included in the Shotline voice messages are 15-year-old Ethan Song, who was shot in an accident involving an unsecured gun. Others are 23year-old Akilah Dasilva, killed in a 2018 Waffle House shooting in Tennessee, and 20-year-old Jaycee Webster, who was shot and killed in his home in 2017.
The youngest is 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, who was shot in a Uvalde, Texas elementary school. One victim’s gunshot wound was self-inflicted — Mike Baughan shot himself within 15 minutes of buying the gun.
The discussion about the Shotline campaign took place on Parkland’s sixth anniversary during a press conference hosted by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Stoneman Douglas alum. He and other congressmen talked about the Parkland shooting and the actions taken in Florida since then.
Moskowitz again touted the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act, which raised the age to buy a gun in Florida to 21 years old and gave courts the right to order the removal of firearms from people judged to be a danger. The so-called “red flag laws” have been used 12,000 times across the state since the law was passed.
Moskowitz stressed that Congress needs to do its part in gun violence prevention and should look at Florida’s reforms as an example. He urged for bipartisan actions on solutions, even if just agreeing on installing protective doors and windows in classrooms.
“Why does it take a Parkland or a
Uvalde or frankly when gun violence affects an individual family?” Moskowitz said. “Why does it take these mass events to get attention?”
Stephany Matat is a politics reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at smatat@ pbpost.com.
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