Professor Rookard Focuses on Algorithmic Governance in Recent Law Review Articles
As artificial intelligence permeates more of our legal and political systems, how can we keep the needs of real people at the forefront?
That's one of the questions behind Edward J. Womac, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law Landyn Rookard's research. His latest scholarship — including two new articles in Tulane Law Review and Oklahoma Law Review — identifies and proposes safeguards against the growing threats posed by artificial intelligence and algorithmic governance. These articles build on his 2025 article, “The Common Threats of Artificial Intelligence and Privatization,” published in Texas A&M Law Review.
Algorithmic governance refers to the idea that digital technologies affect the social and political order in certain ways. The discourse around algorithmic governance includes worries about privacy, data collection, cybersecurity, equity, and human agency, to name a few.
"I began writing about algorithmic governance because I believed that the literature needed to more carefully explore its connection to the government’s use of private actors to perform important public functions,” Prof. Rookard said. “The government's use of AI carries potentially significant consequences for civil rights and social justice, not to mention fascinating and complicated doctrinal issues.”
In his most recent publication, “Inherently Human Functions” for Tulane Law Review, Prof. Rookard discusses federal law prohibiting government agencies from outsourcing sensitive functions to outside groups and how that law can be adapted to limit algorithmic governance from AI systems. He argues that Congress should adopt similar legislation evoking the “inherently human function” designation to “combat inappropriate governmental algorithmization and guarantee that humans make certain, high-impact decisions.”
In “Digital Personhood and the Immutability of Change”, scheduled for publication in the Oklahoma Law Review in early 2027, Prof. Rookard argues that artificial intelligence tools create “digital persons” that can sometimes clash with the complex realities of who we are as people. In the article, Prof. Rookard cautions against using AI tools to sort people into rigid, uncontestable categories that then be used to make important decisions regarding access to healthcare, asylum, and immigration detention. Prof. Rookard proposes legal reforms with the goal of making the legal system more dynamic and human-centered.