COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy urged judges Thursday to approach artificial intelligence with caution, saying technology should never replace the human judgment required to interpret the law and decide cases. Kennedy made the remarks during her annual State of the Judiciary address, which also emphasized judicial independence and the separation of powers as the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. Her warning came after a July 24 cybersecurity breach that affected 18 state supreme courts, according to Kennedy. Hackers obtained between 3.5 million and 4 million documents from 10 of Ohio’s 12 appellate districts. The breach heightened concerns about how court records containing sensitive personal information could be handled by AI systems. Kennedy said she was “very concerned” that such data might be used to train or operate an artificial-intelligence model. She pointed to a growing list of unresolved legal questions, including whether AI-generated images, memes and other creations receive copyright protection and whether using a person’s likeness in an AI system violates that person’s rights. Kennedy said she is participating in a national group of judges studying appropriate applications for AI in the courts. She told members of the Ohio Judicial Conference that technology may assist with some tasks, but judges must retain responsibility for legal analysis and outcomes. The central issue, she said, is determining what uses are appropriate without surrendering the judiciary’s constitutional role. Judges must continue to interpret statutes and the Constitution while respecting the separation of powers and the limits of judicial authority, she said. Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, who now leads the Judicial Conference, also urged judges to think carefully about technology that changes faster than courts can readily understand. Pfeifer said that, after hearing about AI two years ago, he had come to believe that even its developers do not fully understand how it works. The July breach, he said, showed why courts must be especially careful with digital systems. “We may be going back to the manual typewriter,” Pfeifer said. The remarks underscore a broader challenge for Ohio’s justice system: courts are being asked to modernize while protecting confidential records, preserving public trust and ensuring that decisions remain accountable to people rather than opaque commercial software. For litigants and communities across the state, that distinction affects not only privacy but confidence that court decisions are based on law and evidence.