Extract from David Horrigan’s article “A Curious Footnote Misses the Point on Judicial Use of AI and Judge Rodriguez’s AI Scholarship”
To say U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez (W.D. Tex.) is a scholar on data law generally, and the law of artificial intelligence specifically, would be an understatement.
With a Harvard undergraduate degree and legal education from the University of Texas and Duke, the former Big Law litigation partner, Army Reserve officer, and associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court gives thoughtful consideration to data law and AI issues—whether from the bench, as an adjunct professor of law at St. Mary’s University School of Law, or in any of his many academic speaking engagements.
Thus, it was more than slightly surprising when, in writing a decision in a matter of alleged election ballot harvesting, U.S. Circuit Judge Edith Jones of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals included a footnote insinuating Judge Rodriguez may have outsourced his legal judgment to AI tools.
