The UK Government’s Incubator for AI (I.AI) is developing a system aimed at making the legislative drafting process easier.
It is working with the Ministry of Justice, the Government Legal Department and National Archives on the development of Lex, which is intended to support legislative teams by giving them a range of AI tools to navigate, explain and interrogate UK law.
Liam Wilkinson, head of applied AI at i.AI, said the name originates from the Latin word ‘lex’, which means law or statute.
In a blogpost he said the main features of the system – currently in prototype – are a semantic search capability to quickly locate contextually relevant legislative materials, and an AI assisted drafting tool that generates explanatory notes on government bills.
These are designed with an understanding of UK-specific legal terms and aimed at reducing manual effort to give legislative teams more time to focus on more nuanced aspects of their work.
Capturing nuance
“The project is developing open embedding models to ensure that the AI captures the nuances of legal language accurately, making the drafting process even more precise,” Wilkinson said.
“Notably, these embedding models have been open sourced to assist others in navigating legislation using AI, reflecting our commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration in the legal sector.”
He added that user research sessions with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel have contributed to the development, and the further sessions are planned across the Civil Service.
In addition, i.AI is beginning to find early users of the prototype version of Lex.
“As the project progresses, we anticipate it will have a profound impact on public service delivery, helping create a more responsive and productive government,” Wilkinson said.
i.AI works within the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology to promote the use of AI for the public good.
