Nachman N. Gutowski (UNLV; Google Scholar), Disclosing the Machine: Trends, Policies, and Considerations of Artificial Intelligence Use in Law Review Authorship, 2 Jacksonville U. L. Rev. __ (2025):
The expanding role of artificial intelligence (AI) in legal research, writing, and scholarly creation pushes us to consider the need to challenge traditional notions of authorship and originality. AI tools, which perhaps previously served as supplementary aids, can now actively participate in drafting, conducting research, and supporting complex, innovative ideas. Technological evolution's pace and frequency continue to blur the traditional boundaries between contributions from human and machine sources. This raises significant and important considerations about the policies law reviews should adopt to address practical, intellectual, and other challenges AI-assisted scholarship raises. Despite its proliferation and growing influence, many law reviews have not established comprehensive guidelines on AI, leaving scholars and editors navigating a landscape riddled with ambiguity, skepticism, suspicion, or just a deafening silence. To fully understand AI's potential role in legal scholarship, we must engage with and move beyond the initial comparisons to traditional tools and recognize that AI!s contributions differ fundamentally from historical methods.
This seismic shift calls for a more granular understanding of how intellectual labor can be a shared journey between human authors and a growing list of technology partners. Perhaps much of the anxiety surrounding AI use, particularly concerns about its impact on authorship, originates from exaggerated perceptions of its capabilities and a reluctance to acknowledge AI as a valid contributor to the creative process. Overly restrictive measures, such as unenforceable bans or unreliable detection tools, are neither practical nor relevant to the broader issues of authorship and integrity. Instead, this article advocates for thoughtful policies that emphasize the normalization of utilization and look positively toward transparency and disclosure. It encourages scholars to recognize AI's role while advising law reviews not to portray its use as problematic. By shifting the conversation from fear to acknowledgment, law reviews can set new accountability and intellectual integrity standards by promoting transparency and recognizing AI's ability to enhance scholarly work. Rather than drawing rigid lines between human and machine contributions, legal academia should embrace AI as an integral tool that enhances, rather than diminishes, intellectual work. The key to maintaining scholarly integrity is not restricting AI!s use but promoting a better understanding of how AI can complement human authorship. This article examines the current landscape of law reviews, most of which lack clear AI policies. It proposes a framework for developing thoughtful guidelines that address the evolving role of AI in legal scholarship.
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