Rules-as-Code Guild

tags: community-of-practice formation, resources, public-digital-infrastructure

Question

What might a Rules-as-code Guild achieve?

Answer

"Rules-as-Code" (RaC) is an approach to legislation and policy-making that treats rules and regulations as a form of code that can be understood by humans and executed by computers.

The idea is that by translating legislation into machine-readable format, we can create systems that are more transparent, efficient, and easier to manage. A "Rules-as-Code Guild" could serve as a collective of experts, lawmakers, developers, and other stakeholders who are interested in this intersection between law and technology. Here are some objectives and activities that such a guild could potentially undertake:

Education and Training

Educate Lawmakers: Workshops and training sessions to help lawmakers understand the concept and importance of Rules-as-Code.
Technical Training: Skill-building sessions for people in government, law, and software development to understand the other's domain more thoroughly.

Research and Development

Best Practices: Research and develop best practices for encoding rules and regulations.
Interoperability: Work on making encoded laws interoperable across various jurisdictions.
Innovation Grants: Fund research projects that aim to create new tools or methods for implementing Rules-as-Code.

Standardization*

Create a Repository: A place (a rules-as-code commons) for storing machine-readable laws and policies.
Standards Development: Work on creating a universal standard or set of standards for Rules-as-Code.
Quality Assurance: Ensure that rules are encoded accurately and meet the necessary legal and technical standards.

Implementation and Deployment

Pilot Projects: Collaborate with governments to implement Rules-as-Code in small-scale, controlled environments.
Public Awareness: Run public campaigns to inform people about how Rules-as-Code could make governance more transparent and efficient.
Consultancy Services: Offer expertise and assistance to institutions willing to implement Rules-as-Code.

Policy and Advocacy

Legal Frameworks: Advocate for the creation or adaptation of legal frameworks that facilitate Rules-as-Code.
Collaboration: Foster relationships between the tech industry, academia, and government to push the Rules-as-Code agenda.
Public Input: Facilitate channels for public feedback on Rules-as-Code projects, thus adding an element of participatory governance.

Ethical Guidelines: Develop ethical guidelines to address concerns like privacy, discrimination, and other societal impacts of automating law.
Social Impact Studies: Conduct studies on the social and economic impact of implementing Rules-as-Code.

Networking and Community Building

Events and Conferences: Host events that bring together professionals from various disciplines to discuss and advance Rules-as-Code.
Collaboration Platform: Create a digital platform for members to collaborate, share resources, and provide mentorship.

By focusing on these areas, a Rules-as-Code Guild could serve as an instrumental organization in accelerating the adoption of Rules-as-Code and ensuring that it is implemented in a manner that is both ethical and effective.

*Standards

Standards development is a critical aspect of the Rules-as-Code paradigm, as it helps ensure that the machine-readable rules are uniform, interpretable, and consistent across various domains and jurisdictions. This standardization can lead to easier integration and implementation, thereby making government processes more efficient and transparent.

The concept of standardization often conjures images of uniformity and homogenization, which can be misleading. In the context of Rules-as-Code, standardization serves primarily as a quality-control process rather than a process aimed at creating a one-size-fits-all model. Here's how:

Facilitates Quality Assurance

Standardization helps establish a framework within which rules and policies can be rigorously tested and validated. By defining standards for encoding rules, testing their outcomes, and assessing their impacts, it becomes easier to ensure that the Rules-as-Code implementations are accurate, reliable, and effective. This is analogous to setting quality control measures in manufacturing or service delivery.

Encourages Best Practices

When standards are developed, they are usually built upon proven methodologies and best practices. These standards can guide developers, policymakers, and other stakeholders in achieving high levels of quality in their Rules-as-Code implementations. Following a set of quality standards can help organizations avoid common pitfalls and implement rules more effectively.

Enables Comparability and Evaluation

Without standards, it is difficult to compare or evaluate different Rules-as-Code implementations. Standardization offers a common set of criteria or metrics against which the quality of various implementations can be assessed. This facilitates ongoing improvement and refinement by providing a feedback loop based on measurable quality indicators.

Provides Flexibility Within Constraints

Standardization does not necessarily mean rigid uniformity. Well-designed standards can offer a range of acceptable approaches, techniques, or methods for achieving the desired quality. This allows for innovation and adaptation to specific needs or circumstances while still maintaining a high level of quality control.

Supports Interoperability

Standardization in Rules-as-Code can also mean that various systems can work together seamlessly. Interoperability standards can help ensure that different Rules-as-Code systems can interact without compromising on quality, thus making it easier to implement multi-jurisdictional or complex rules.

Enhances Transparency and Accountability

By adhering to a set of quality standards, Rules-as-Code implementations can more easily be scrutinized by experts, policymakers, and the public. This level of transparency can foster greater accountability and trust, as it becomes clearer how rules are being implemented and what methodologies are being followed.

Promotes Scalability While Maintaining Quality

Standardization can facilitate the scaling of Rules-as-Code implementations across different jurisdictions or policy domains without sacrificing quality. By following a set of quality standards, new implementations can be more quickly developed and existing ones can be more easily adapted, all while maintaining a consistent level of quality.

In summary, standardization in the context of Rules-as-Code serves as a powerful tool for quality control. It helps to establish a reliable framework within which rules can be developed, tested, and deployed, thereby ensuring that they are effective, transparent, and trustworthy.

Types of Standards

Here are some types of standards that a Rules-as-Code Guild might focus on:

Syntax and Semantics Standards

Standard Language: Developing a standard language or set of languages in which rules should be coded. This could be a programming language or a domain-specific language specially created for legal rules.
Data Types and Structures: Standardizing the data types and structures used for representing information like dates, financial amounts, and other entities that are common in legal rules.

Documentation and Metadata

Metadata Standards: Establishing how metadata (information about the rules, such as author, jurisdiction, applicable dates, etc.) should be encoded.
Annotation Guidelines: Developing guidelines for annotating the machine-readable rules with human-readable explanations or references to the legal text.

Interface and API Standards

API Guidelines: Creating standards for how Rules-as-Code systems will expose their functionality through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), allowing them to interact with other systems.
Query Language: Standardizing the query languages or methods used to retrieve or execute rules.

Interoperability Standards

Cross-Jurisdiction Compatibility: Standards for ensuring that rules can be easily shared or transferred across different jurisdictions.
Schema Standards: Creating standard schemas for encoding rules so that they can be easily mapped to each other, facilitating interoperability.

Testing and Validation Standards

Testing Protocols: Developing standard protocols for testing the accuracy and reliability of machine-readable rules.
Validation Checks: Creating benchmarks and methods for ensuring that coded rules are true to the original legal text.

Security and Privacy Standards

Data Encryption: Standard procedures for encrypting sensitive data.
User Authorization: Defining how to manage user roles and permissions to ensure only authorized individuals can alter or deploy rules.

Ethical and Accessibility Standards

Ethical Considerations: Crafting guidelines that ensure the ethical implementation of Rules-as-Code, with focus on fairness, inclusivity, and transparency.
Accessibility Guidelines: Standards to ensure that the system is accessible to people with disabilities, including those with visual, hearing, or cognitive impairments.

Versioning and Change Management

Version Control: Guidelines for versioning machine-readable rules and managing updates and changes.
Archival Standards: Establishing how old versions of rules are archived and how changes are documented.

By focusing on these areas, the Rules-as-Code Guild can make significant strides in standardizing the encoding, sharing, and execution of machine-readable rules, thereby making the approach more robust, reliable, and widely applicable.