Artificial intelligence is playing a part in paring down Ohio鈥檚 state laws and regulations, so far having eliminated more than two million words from the Ohio Revised Code.
Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said in a December interview the program is currently combing through and seeking out parts of Ohio鈥檚 regulatory code that are outdated鈥攍ike references to telegraphs or cassette tapes鈥攐r redundant otherwise.
鈥淭he regulatory code is something like 15 million words,鈥� Husted said. 鈥淣o one person can read through that, nobody can possibly digest all of this, but an AI tool can do it in minutes.鈥�
The effort is under the state鈥檚 Common Sense Initiative, established by Gov. Mike DeWine and Husted early in their administration to make Ohio friendlier to businesses by eliminating what the state sees as regulatory obstacles.
Husted likens the AI program itself to a more advanced version of something like a grammar checker, since it鈥檚 human-prompted. The tool was built to learn the Ohio Revised Code鈥檚 kinks as it goes, though.
Research that a majority of people are frightened by AI鈥攆or different reasons, including that it could cause job loss. In this situation, Husted said artificial intelligence is collaborative, rather than substitutive.
鈥淭his is work that nobody was doing,鈥� Husted said. 鈥淚t really changes attitudes about this whole conversation. Remember, people talk about the legislature, 鈥榃ell, hey, we want to eliminate two rules for every new one we create,鈥� but then they keep passing laws, and then every law requires a new regulation. I liken it to saying you owned a house for 200 years and it needs a cleaning.鈥�
With the legislature鈥檚 green light, Husted said the tool could cut millions more words by the next budget cycle.