The Danger of AI in Decision Writing: Where to Draw the Line?

Artificial intelligence is proliferating the legal sector. In the article, “AI Competence Is Now a Professional Obligation“, Soussanna Karas writes that the question is not will lawyers use AI but “whether they will do so competently, ethically, and responsibly”. I think the same question can be extended to the judiciary. At some point, judges will be using AI, and may already be doing so. For example, CanLII uses generative AI. So, when lawyers and judges access CanLII, they could already be considered using a form of AI.

But where should we draw the line? In my opinion, when it comes to judges writing the reasons for their decisions.

1. Writing reasons is the essence of judging. In Justice Beverley McLachlin’s memoir Truth Be Told: My Journey Through Life and the Law (2020), she writes that judgment writing (setting out the facts, working through the case law, analyzing the statutory provisions) is the essence of judging. “The process of putting these things on paper is an integral part of determining the proper outcome.” In most cases, she would begin drafting reasons with a sense of what she thought the answer would be. “But the process of writing clarified the rightness or wrongness of my initial inclination. In some cases, it even led to a different result than I expected.”
2. Maintaining a Mind’s Sharpness. Delegating thought processes to digital devices can deteriorate a mind’s sharpness. A recent MIT Media Lab study reported that excessive reliance on AI driven solutions could contribute to cognitive atrophy. The Harvard Gazette addressed this in their article “Is AI dulling our minds?” See MIT study – https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872v1.
3. Writing helps us think and create meaning. Although more profound with handwriting over typing, writing helps us process information. “Writing by hand strengthens memory and learning through the ‘encoding effect’, where the effort of forming letters improves retention and comprehension…Furthermore, while efficient for recording large amounts of information, typing does not engage the brain’s memory systems so deeply. Research has shown that typists tend to transcribe verbatim, which results in shallower processing of information.” See: The Neuroscience Behind Writing: Handwriting vs. Typing—Who Wins the Battle? But either way, writing is a form of thinking, and the requirement of putting pen to paper helps us deliberate, whether it is a literal pen or a figurative one.

(Views are my own and do not represent the views of any organization.)