AI Will Help US Federal Agencies Sift Through Outdated Paperwork

The systems will go through tens of thousands of outdated, obsolete, and inconsistent information.

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are being taught to function over a vast number of industries, and in many different ways. From detecting lung cancer to describing images for blind people, AI is proving useful in so many ways.

Now, the U.S.’s White House Office of Management and Budget (OBM) stated last Friday that it will be using AI to sift through tens of thousands of papers that are no longer useful, up-to-date, and inconsistent, per Reuters.

The new initiative aims to assist U.S. federal agencies to comb through thousands upon thousands of regulatory code pages. The point is to find which sections need updating, reconciliation, and which ones need to be “scrubbed of technical mistakes,” said the White House, per Reuters.

The OBM mentioned that all federal agencies are encouraged to use AI in order to update their regulations, with a number of them have already agreed to do so. 

Back in 2019, a pilot project was carried out by the Department of Health and Human Services. The project used machine learning algorithms and natural language processing to go through books and paperwork from the department, and discovered hundreds of technical mistakes as well as outdated requirements in agency rulebooks, and fax submissions, as Reuters reported.

The pilot project encouraged the OBM to push using AI for such work in other federal agencies now. 

As Russel Vought, White House OBM director, stated, the AI work would help “update a regulatory code marked by decades of neglect and lack of reform.”

Using AI would undoubtedly speed up the process. 

So far, some of the agencies that have agreed to go down this route include the Transportation Department, the Agriculture Department, the Labor Department and the Interior Department, per Reuters.

This isn’t the first time AI is being called upon to help speed up huge loads of paperwork processing. Earlier this year, a business processing automation startup, Anvil, also declared it would be using AI to sift through its books and regulations. 

Source: https://interestingengineering.com