Massachusetts has made efforts to modernize some of its laws. Under former governor Charlie Baker, more than 1,700 executive branch regulations were reviewed, and 67 percent were removed or changed. The Negating Archaic Statutes Targeting Young Women Act repealed outdated state laws regarding abortion, adultery, and contraception. Most recently, Governor Maura Healey signed legislation that replaces offensive language in state laws for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
While those efforts should be applauded, they are limited in their reach and take a long time. Luckily, there is now another approach available.
Some states are starting to use AI to comb through statutes and regulations. Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul of New York announced an executive order to modernize archaic laws using AI tools to look for laws requiring people to send telegrams, submit forms in triplicate, and other clearly outdated regulations. New York state agencies will look at the results of the AI tools and decide whether or not specific statutes should be changed. Virginia and Ohio also have similar programs. Massachusetts should follow suit.
AI tools excel at processing huge amounts of text quickly. Rather than simply searching for specific words or phrases that outdated laws may include, they can point out sections that fit the general sentiment of a query. For example, a tool could surface laws that have an outdated filing procedure.
Beth Simone Noveck, a professor at Northeastern University and former chief AI strategist of New Jersey, explained to the editorial board that AI tools have the ability to parse through thousands of pages of text, looking for the needle in a haystack.
Officials then receive a list of potential rules that are outdated or inefficient and can determine whether to remove, adjust, or keep the regulation.
Beyond surfacing strange — and often funny — rules hidden in Massachusetts laws, cleaning up has the potential to have tangible and positive benefits on government efficiency and the economy.
A recent report from the Stanford RegLab found that the Massachusetts government has more than 800 reports required to be created regularly, often for an indefinite period of time. Some of those include an annual report on trade between Ireland and Massachusetts (there appear to be no reports required for trade with any other country), reports on coal mining in the Commonwealth (the state’s last coal mine closed more than a century ago), and inspection reports on nuclear reactors (there are no commercial reactors in Massachusetts).
While some of the reports might be important, others are outdated or unnecessary, and some of them appear to be similar enough to each other that they could be combined. Eliminating the no-longer-needed reports allows officials to spend more time on work that does matter.
“These obsolete, outdated burdens and regulations are sort of like low-hanging fruit, and in some ways, they’re a bit of a bottleneck,” Derek Ouyang, a research director at the Stanford RegLab, said to the editorial board.
Outdated regulations carry a cost. Businesses spend time complying with unnecessary paperwork, state employees spend time enforcing obsolete requirements or filing reports nobody reads, and residents face needless delays. Before AI was widely available, Virginia undertook a regulatory cleanup project. It took three years but removed more than 25 percent of its regulations. The changes saved Virginians more than $1 billion dollars, reduced the cost of building a new home by $24,000, and sped up many agencies’ permitting processes.
Most of the time, the state government is focused on creating new laws.
“We add, and we add, and we add — we never take anything away, ” Noveck said.
But there are clear benefits to spending time figuring out which laws to remove.
Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
