"Not perfect, good enough is enough": AI to draft US traffic rules
New traffic safety rules take months or years. The US government now wants to significantly speed up the process – with the help of Google's AI.
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The US Department of Transportation wants to have AI technology pre-draft traffic safety rules in the future, with officials only having to proofread them. A first rule from the aviation authority has even been drafted with the help of AI, but has not yet been published. This is reported by the US magazine ProPublica, citing several sources who were present at internal presentations of the plans. The ministry's legal counsel made it clear that the primary goal is to accelerate the process of developing regulations. "We don't need the perfect rule for XYZ, we don't even need a very good rule for XYZ," ProPublica quotes Gregory Zerzan as saying: "We want good enough." He further explained: "We are flooding the zone."
Speed as the Top Priority
The announcement has caused concern within the ministry, writes ProPublica. After all, the department is responsible for rules that affect almost every area of transport and traffic safety. This includes the safety of aircraft, pipelines, and freight transport. Currently, it takes months or even years to draft the complex regulations that are to apply throughout the United States. With its own version of Google's Gemini, which is to be used for this purpose, it will only take minutes or even seconds. The stated goal, according to the report, is to drastically shorten the creation of traffic rules. From the idea to the submission to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which must then review it, a maximum of 30 days should pass.
At an internal presentation of the plans, it was explained that Gemini should handle 80 to 90 percent of the regulatory creation. To demonstrate its capabilities, the AI technology was supposed to generate a typical announcement for a planned rule during the presentation. These are published in advance so that the public can comment on them. In this specific case, however, the AI-generated version apparently lacked precisely the text that explains the rule. Nevertheless, those responsible did not seem concerned that the so-called hallucinations of AI text generators could cause problems. And even if they did, it would be up to the ministry's officials to find and remove such errors.
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ProPublica received no statement from those responsible regarding the report, but did receive information from anonymous sources within the ministry. These sources pointed out that drafting regulations is a complex task that requires a great deal of expertise. Existing laws and other regulations, as well as court rulings, must be taken into account. Errors or omissions in the wording could lead to legal disputes or even injuries and fatalities. Even the ministry's former head of AI has reportedly criticized the plans. Mike Hortin left the office at the end of August, before the plans existed. For him, it sounds like "having a high school intern draft the regulations."
(mho)
