Aporia · AI Freezes The Scholarly Voice

The author of The Volokh Conspiracy, a blog featuring law professors and contrarian perspectives, recently attended a workshop on AI in academia. He notes that established professors can train AI on their existing body of work, but junior scholars struggle to develop their own voice using AI without prior writings to train it on. The key issue is how the rise of AI will impact the hiring process at law schools and tenure decisions, as younger scholars may rely heavily on AI for writing. The author fears that this could lead to a homogenization of scholarly voices and a shift from creative thinking to relying on "law coding".

Written by the local model on 2026-08-24, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

Story summary

Law professors at a workshop discussed how they are using AI to generate text in their own writing style. One professor shared that he had trained the AI on his past publications to create content similar to his own scholarly voice. This raises questions about how junior professors can develop their unique voices if established professors use AI and don't have a large corpus of writings to train it on. The speaker noted that young scholars may be more inclined to use technology, including AI, due to their tech savviness.

Written for “AI Impact on Academia” on 2026-08-31, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Why this leaning score

The article's own words the score was based on. Each is quoted verbatim and was checked against the article text before being stored, so you can find it in the original.

Their entire body of work will be a byproduct of AI.

right implies that AI-generated work is inferior to human-written work
Scholarly creativity will give way to law coding.

right suggests that the use of AI in academic writing will lead to a loss of creative value

Score +0.85 Confidence high

Leaning score +0.85 for article 2062 (high confidence, 2 verified quotes) · logged 2026-08-27

📰 AI Impact on Academia

Education · 1 article(s) covering the same event. This is the one the site leads with.

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability

Source leaning vs. consistency

This article reads leans strongly right and hedges 5% of its claims. Each row says how that neighbour differs.

An ‘AI legal team’ secures its first win in landmark employment case different event · 100%

The Independent World

⚖️ Leans right further left than this 🔴 14% hedged 5 of 35 📰 publisher trust 95

“The articles describe two separate events: one is about a landmark employment case involving Gregory Baker, and the other is about law professors using AI in their writing style.”

The AI ‘Ghosts’ Contaminating Academic Publishing different event · 100%

404 Media

⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 7% hedged 2 of 28 📰 publisher trust 95

“Article A describes a workshop about law professors using AI to write in their own style, while Article B discusses a research paper about 'AI ghosts' contaminating academic publishing with fake co-author names generated by large language models”

AI writing has already begun to appear on the opinion pages different event · 90%

Semafor

⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 11% hedged 5 of 47 📰 publisher trust 96

“Article A describes a workshop about law professors using AI, while Article B discusses an analysis of guest columns in top publications with some possible AI contributions, indicating different events”

Beware the Ready-Made Op-Ed different event · 80%

The Dispatch

⚖️ leaning not scored 🔴 0% hedged 0 of 4 📰 publisher trust 96

“Article A discusses law professors using AI in a workshop, while Article B describes billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller's use of AI to write an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal”

Reason.com · 37 article(s) · 0 correction(s) detected

Signal	Value	Weight
Correction rate	0.000	0.4
Uncertainty density	0.117	0.25
Assertive mismatch rate	0.000	0.35

No corrections detected for this publisher. That may mean careful reporting, or simply that nothing has been checked.

Josh Blackman

5 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction

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2026-08-26 · assertive framing · A Wall Of Separation Between LGB and T

🔮 One would think that a former federal courts professor in the majority would get these cases, but apparently not.

2026-08-25 · assertive framing · How Long Did Justice Jackson's "Kafkaesque Nightmare" Dissent Hold Up Trump v. California?

🔮 Thus, any text generated by the AI will be in the same sort of style that the professor has--or perhaps had.

2026-08-24 · assertive framing · AI Freezes The Scholarly Voice

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Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

No topics tagged.

The Volokh PERSON · 1×

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent I recently attended a workshop about how law professor are using AI.

framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-08-24

🔮 Thus, any text generated by the AI will be in the same sort of style that the professor has--or perhaps had.

2026-08-24 · Reason.com

AI Freezes The Scholarly Voice · assertive framing

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent I recently attended a workshop about how law professor are using AI. asserted

professor → attend → AI

One professor said that he has trained AI on his writing style by reviewing all of his past publications. asserted

he → say → publications

Thus, any text generated by the AI will be in the same sort of style that the professor has--or perhaps had. asserted

professor → generate → style

Law professors will often research in certain areas of the law, but across all categories, they write with a particular approach called a scholarly voice. asserted

they → research → approach

Many junior professors struggle with developing their own voice. asserted

professors → struggle → voice

Indeed, I would wager that for most scholars, their voice changes over the years. asserted

voice → wager → years

For sure, my voice has changed substantially since I started teaching in 2012. asserted

I → change → 2012

What does AI do to this process? asserted

AI → do → process

Perhaps established professors have a corpus of writings to train AI, but newbies do not. asserted

newbies → establish → AI

How are developing writers supposed to build their own voice if AI has nothing to train on? asserted

AI → develop → nothing

I suppose the obvious reply is that junior scholars should not use AI. asserted

scholars → suppose → AI

But I would wager that the youngest writers are likely the most tech savvy, and may have even started using this tech in the earliest years of their practice. uncertain

writers → wager → practice

Soon enough, all people on the hiring market will have come of age with AI in law school. asserted

people → hire → school

And they will never have a chance to develop their own voice without a helpful agent to assist. asserted

they → have → agent

This fact will necessarily affect how law schools hire and grant tenure. asserted

schools → affect → tenure

Perhaps professors should be asked to describe exactly how they use AI in their scholarship. asserted

they → ask → scholarship

But I am not confident this inquiry will prove much. asserted

inquiry → prove → much

Ultimately, we should just presume that nearly everything written was aided by AI, unless a professor affirmatively states it was written old school. asserted

it → presume → AI

And with that presumption in place, I struggle to measure how much the professor actually brings to the scholarly inquiry. asserted

professor → struggle → inquiry

We will just end up rewarding whoever can coach their agents the best. asserted

whoever → end → agents

Scholarly creativity will give way to law coding. asserted

creativity → give → coding

AI Freezes The Scholarly Voice

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