A federal body suggests using AI to find typos before writing new rules.
A federal agency is considering using artificial intelligence to discover confusing or redundant rules.
However, doubters doubt AI can read and comprehend hundreds of thousands of pages of government regulations.
The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) independently improves rules. ACUS released a report it requested in early May on how AI and other computational technologies could improve federal standards.
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That report suggested AI could perform “housekeeping” activities, including correcting typos and citations. The report also stated AI might learn more.
“A tool could find rules that are either out of date or already covered by another rule,” the report said, adding that it is difficult. “Neither question may have a correct answer: Is an old rule invalid? Does the identical terminology or regulated items make one direction unnecessary?
“An algorithm that does even more important work could find existing rules it thinks need to be clarified or are too hard to follow,” it stated. “These are both questions that could be answered in a completely subjective way: When is a rule too hard to follow or too complicated?”
The paper quoted several federal officials, most of whom supported utilizing AI for retrospective regulatory reviews.
However, federally regulated groups were more cautious about AI use. Most thought AI would only indicate regulations for review, leaving people to do it.
The two “skeptics” suggested the Trump administration’s AI use may have “poisoned the well” and made it harder for other agencies to explore AI.
“One person went on to state that it “sour[ed] the community’s thought about retroactive review” because it utilized retrospective review “as a cover for partisan aims,” the report added.
Federal agencies staff ACUS. The group’s study director, Jeremy Graboyes, told Fox News Digital that the government doesn’t know how to employ AI.
“I think you probably see a range of emotions,” Graboyes said, adding that AI system bias could make positives like cheap cost and accuracy less essential. “All the arguments you see outside of government are also going on inside government.”
ACUS suggests government entities employ AI to discover and remedy minor faults and unnecessary rules. This requires open-source AI tools. ACUS also advised authorities to disclose when using AI or other algorithmic techniques to analyze laws.
ACUS will decide on the report’s recommendations in mid-June in Washington. After that, Graboyes claimed ACUS would implement these proposals with government entities. This was a start that could lead the agency to recommend more advanced AI work in the future.
He remarked, “We’ll do more work in the AI space.”
