AI takes on the Ohio Administrative Code

In his war against the regulatory state, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted enlisted the bots long ago.

The big picture: Husted's office credits an AI-aided analysis of the state's administrative code with eliminating 2.2 million words' worth of unnecessary and outdated regulations as of the end of last year.

• The work began in 2020, two years before ChatGPT's release brought AI to the masses.

What they're saying: Husted tells Axios he literally couldn't have done it without AI's help.

• "If you think about it, no human being could make sense of the administrative code," he said. "I think it's like 17.4 million words."

How they did it: Husted's office used a tool called RegExplorer created by Deloitte.

• His team uploaded the state's regulations and entered prompts asking it to identify outdated and duplicative sections.

What they found: Thousands of pages of rules for lottery games that haven't been played in decades.

• Repetitive language that makes it hard to tell where the state's building and fire codes vary from national standards.
• And all kinds of outdated language that requires in-person interaction with state government that, once eliminated, will save 58,000 hours of labor over the next decade, the state estimates.

What's next: Husted is asking the legislature for permission to keep going, estimating he could eventually cut the state's administrative code by a third.

• Eventually, he says he'd like to see the state launch public-facing AI tools that will allow residents to ask questions about the state's laws and regulations and get answers back in plain, easy to understand English.