AI “Assistance”

“Come now, Kathleen! You can’t just think for yourself.”

APPLICANT’S NOTICE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ASSISTANCE

 
The Applicant, Kathleen Pageot, provides this Notice to disclose the manner in which I have made use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools in the preparation of these proceedings.

By 2026, I had already spent twenty-two years working alone on my constitutional research project. For most of that time, my principal research assistants consisted of books, archives, court files, photocopiers, coffee, stubbornness, and occasional fits of despair.

Then AI arrived.

At first, I imagined it would function as a tireless junior researcher. In practice, it turned out to be something closer to an overeducated intern, a debate opponent, a search engine, a proofreader, a cartoonist, a librarian, and a mildly exasperating schoolteacher—all trapped in the same machine.

A typical session begins with me asking a question. AI immediately answers a different question, usually one that nobody asked. I then explain why its answer is wrong. AI apologizes and produces a second answer. I explain why that one is also wrong. Several rounds later, we eventually discover that the original question was more complicated than either of us thought.

The process alternates between cooperation and argument.

I send AI down Internet rabbit holes to locate obscure legal authorities, forgotten speeches, court files, biographies, Hansard debates, and constitutional oddities that would otherwise take days to track down. AI returns with armloads of material. I sort through it, discard half of it, question the other half, and occasionally discover a useful gem buried in the pile.

Our disagreements are frequent.

AI is naturally inclined toward established interpretations, prevailing academic opinion, and what it finds in modern sources. I am inclined to challenge assumptions, read original documents, and ask whether everyone has been looking at the problem backwards for the last century.

As a result, many sessions resemble a courtroom cross-examination conducted against a very patient robot.

Yet despite the arguments, AI has become a valuable assistant: never tired, never offended, endlessly available, and capable of helping transform a solitary project into something resembling a conversation—albeit a conversation with a machine that occasionally needs to be dragged, kicking and screaming, toward the primary sources.

The Applicant makes this declaration in the interests of transparency, professional integrity and respect for the Court, and confirms that she accepts full responsibility for the content of all documents filed in these proceedings.

DATED at Montreal, this ___ day of __________, 2026.

Kathleen Pageot
Applicant, self-represented