Rules as Code—Digitizing Policies For Better Public Access—Exciting Stuff!

Capturing digital twins of public sector policy and rules to better service citizens and allow decision-makers to simulate What-If policy possibilities

Very cool things are happening in the public sector digital development space. One that I have dreamt about for a long time is taking a much more digital approach to laws, rules, regulations, and policy. I have been involved in endless discussions about how best to communicate requirements and entitlements to citizens and companies in various public sector settings.

Ever since the internet first arrived, I have been waiting for a game-changer in the way that people interact with rules and policy, over and above just distributing information to citizens across the net. Rules as Code is a development that has been bubbling away, including in Pia Andrews's work. It is now starting to become more mainstream.

A really exciting aspect of Rules as Code is that it provides a double whammy. It makes it much easier for citizens and companies to find out about their responsibilities and entitlements, but at the same time, it allows decision-makers to simulate What-If possibilities around the particular policy or rules being focused on. (More on What-If planning and AI if you are interested in What-If planning in general).

I recently heard a great presentation about Rules as Code from AWS and Salsa Digital who are involved in multiple Rules as Code pilot projects in Australia.

‘Rules as Code’ is a good example of how a new term is becoming more widely used as a shorthand way of referring to an evolving digital development. This is just one example of the type of thing I am trying to do in my new book, Surfing AI: 30 Fresh Terms and Smarter Ways of Talking About Artificial Intelligence.

What is Rules as Code all about?

Rules as Code starts from the idea that you capture a set of rules or a policy in a digital twin. In this case, you can call it a policy twin or a rules twin. Once you have done this then it opens up some great possibilities. You can leverage your policy or rules digital twin in four major areas.

Communicating a policy or set of rules

You can communicate the content of the digital twin through a range of channels or communication modes.

You can also use the base digital twin and federate it to various settings, such as websites, mobile apps, and chatbots. This means that you maintain a ‘single source of truth.’ Whereas at the moment you can have all sorts of versions of policy or rules out there, rapidly getting out of date as rules and policies evolve.

Allowing people to interact with the policy or rules in a customized experience

If a person or a third party provides information about that person (with appropriate privacy controls), Rules as Code systems can deliver customized information tailored just to that particular person.

Simulating various What-If scenarios for decision-makers

Once you have encoded the policy or rules in a Rules as Code system, if the system has been set up appropriately, decision-makers can then use it to simulate different possibilities to understand the potential impacts of different options.

Automating compliance and enforcement

The Rules as Code digital twin and people’s interaction with it can then also be used to ensure that decisions that are made are consistent with regulations and legislation and this reduces the need for manual check and oversights.

Where this could all possibly lead

You can let your imagination run wild on where this could all lead. Presumably, we could see Rules as Code being captured when policy is being developed. Over time, you could introduce a requirement that new legislation has a digital twin. Developing legislation is a bit of an arcane art—but this would be a cool development if it could be pulled off sometime in the future.

An example of how we are increasingly going to be able to model the metafactual

Just getting a bit conceptually overexcited here. The policy simulation aspect of Rules as Code is an example of how we are about to enter an age where it will become much easier to simulate the metafactual. I talk about this in my new book. We are all used to the term counterfactuals—something that might have happened but did not. Analogously metafactuals include counterfactuals about the past but also the possibilities for what might happen in the future. We are moving to a situation where increasingly, we will be able to simulate large numbers of metafactuals about all sorts of things. In this case, we are talking about policy simulations.

As things develop in this way we open up the possibilities for much more comprehensive discussions about policy options in multiple different sectors and settings. Lots of interesting implications and possibilities.

Anyway, really exciting stuff, and great to hear about it from AWS and Salsa Digital.

(Image source: pch.vector Business people studying list of rules, reading guidance, making checklist. https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/business-people-studying-list-rules-reading-guidance-making-checklist_11235251.htm)