Commentary: Steamboats and telegraphs? Get obsolete laws off New York's books. |
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Section 10-B of the state General Business Law currently requires many international money transfers to be conducted by steamboat.
The Transportation Corporations Law establishes a regulatory framework for “telegraph companies.”
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Labor Law §203-B requires many elevators to have chairs.
These are just a few of the absurd provisions languishing in state law, some dating back over a century. There is no reason for these laws to stay on the books.
Now they no longer have to: Artificial intelligence has made identifying these laws easier than ever.
Working with former Stanford researchers, Assemblyman Alex Bores processed all of New York’s laws with MESA, a specially designed AI tool, and asked four simple questions about every provision on the books:
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1. Is the provision obsolete?
2. Is the provision impossible or nonsensical to enforce?
3. Is the obsolescence........