An AI detector reads finished text and returns a statistical guess about its origin, and it needs your document to do it. A sealed certification is a record made at the moment of work by a named person: what AI was used, for what, and what they personally checked, signed and verifiable by anyone. One is an accusation instrument. The other is evidence.
“Proves” has a precise meaning here: the seal proves the record is unchanged since signing, and the signature proves who stands behind the declaration. It does not prove the declaration is true. Nothing does.
Start with the detector's own numbers
The most-cited measurement of detector reliability is a 2023 Stanford study published in the journal Patterns. Researchers ran seven widely used GPT detectors over 91 TOEFL essays, all written by humans, all by non-native English writers:
Liang, Yuksekgonul, Mao, Wu, Zou, “GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers,” Patterns (Cell Press), 2023. The paper (DOI). A second team, Weber-Wulff and colleagues (2023), tested fourteen detection tools and found none both accurate and reliable; both studies are reviewed in this 2026 assessment.
Legal prose sits in the detectors' weakest zone for a second reason: formal, conventional writing is statistically predictable, and predictability is exactly what detectors flag. The better the brief, the more machine-like it scores. Detectors have their uses as screening signals, and their vendors say as much. What a detector score is not, on the published record, is evidence a court can weigh about who wrote what.
The five options, side by side
| Approach | What it is | Needs your document? | When it judges | What a court can weigh | Failure mode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 The Regulayer Receipt |
A signed record of declared AI use and attested human review, sealed on your machine | No, only its fingerprints | At the moment of work | A signed, dated, tamper-evident record anyone can verify free | It attests; it does not prove the review happened. The weight is the court's call. |
| AI detectors | A statistical guess about a text's origin | Yes, the full text | After the fact | Very little: a contested probability score | False positives concentrated on non-native and highly formal writing; beaten by paraphrase |
| The typed Word declaration | Your statement, typed and signed | No | When you write it | Your word | Undated, unverifiable, silently editable; one made after the fact reads exactly like one made at the time |
| Cloud sealed-evidence platforms | Sealed records created and held by a vendor | Usually, into the vendor's custody | At creation | A third party's log, if the vendor still operates | Custody: privileged work leaves your machine, and the evidence depends on the vendor's survival |
| Free hash sealers (including our Sealer) | Integrity proof for a file: it existed, unchanged, at a time | Only its fingerprint, if designed right | At sealing | That this exact file existed then | No attestation: says nothing about what any person did or checked |
The detector, in plain words
A detector answers a question nobody asked at the time, using only the artifact. It cannot see the process: the prompts, the drafts, the checking, the person. So it infers origin from style, and style is where its documented errors live. If you are accused on the strength of a detector score, the literature above is the rebuttal. If you are tempted to use one on opposing counsel's filing, expect the same literature back. Either way, a guess is not a record.
The typed declaration, honestly
Say this plainly: in most courts today, a typed declaration is legally sufficient. Standing orders ask for your statement, and a signed Word document delivers it. It costs nothing and every court accepts one. Its weaknesses only matter when the statement is doubted: it cannot show when the review happened, it cannot show the statement is unaltered, and one reconstructed after a flag reads exactly like one made before filing. The day your word alone is questioned, those three absences are the whole case.
The cloud platform, and the custody question
Sealed-evidence platforms create real records, but the record and usually the work sit in a vendor's custody. Two problems follow. First, custody is now a legal question: in February 2026 the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held that a defendant's documents produced through a consumer AI platform carried neither attorney-client privilege nor work-product protection, because the platform was a third party (United States v. Heppner, No. 25-cr-00503-JSR; courts split the same week, and the analysis continues on our page on the ruling). Second, continuity: a record that depends on a vendor's servers is exactly as durable as the vendor. Verification that requires the maker to still exist is a service, and services end.
The hash sealer, and what is missing
A hash sealer does one clean job: it proves a file existed, unchanged, at a time. Our own Sealer does it free, locally, with nothing uploaded. But integrity is not attestation. A sealed brief tells the court nothing about what AI was used or what anyone checked, because nobody declared anything. A seal answers “is this the same file.” A standing order asks “what did you use, and what did you verify.”
The receipt, and its limits
The Regulayer Receipt keeps the seal and adds the declaration: the tools, the role they played, the named reviewer, the checks carried out, the attestation verbatim, signed at the moment of work on your own machine, verifiable free by anyone, forever, with nothing uploaded. Its honesty is on its face: the evidence level reads “declared,” the time says where it came from, and no one, including us, can upgrade what the record claims after the fact. It is evidence, not a verdict. That is exactly why a court can weigh it. The full anatomy
Questions people ask
Are AI detectors accurate enough to rely on in a legal dispute?
The peer-reviewed record says no for high-stakes use. The Stanford study above documents a 61.2 per cent false-positive rate on non-native writers across seven widely used detectors, and a second team found none of fourteen tools both accurate and reliable. A detector score is a screening signal, not evidence of authorship.
Is a typed declaration enough for a court's AI disclosure requirement?
In most courts today, yes. The orders ask for the attorney's statement and a signed declaration answers it. What it cannot show is when the review happened or whether the statement was later altered. A sealed, signed record answers the same requirement and adds both properties.
Can I run a detector on opposing counsel's filing?
You can, and it will tell you almost nothing a court can use. The documented error rates run in both directions: false positives on careful human prose, false negatives on edited machine text. The stronger move is to ask for the record: the certification the standing order already entitles the court to expect.
What can a court actually weigh when AI use is disputed?
A record: who signed it, when it was made, what it declares, whether it has been altered since. A detector's probability score is contested in the literature, and a bare denial or accusation is not evidence either way. Contemporaneous, signed, verifiable records are the category with evidentiary traction.
If you remember one line: an accusation is not evidence; a record is.
Make the record before you need it.
The Regulayer Receipt: which AI you used, what you checked, your attestation signed on your own machine, verifiable free by anyone you send it to. Seven days free, then $349 a month. See the attorney's receipt, try the live demos, or verify a real record free.
Study figures verified against the linked sources on 4 August 2026. The seal is tamper-evident, not tamper-proof. A receipt attests what the signer declared; what weight a court gives any of this is the court's decision.
What the rules themselves ask for
No court anywhere asks for a detector score. What courts ask for is disclosure and verification, and in New South Wales, the record of the prompts. Twenty-four entries, read at source.
AI rules for lawyers, country by country →