“I have not seen anything like an executive order that really kick-starts a process like this, and commits to untangling the bureaucracy to move forward,” said Prof. Daniel Ho, who directs the Regulation, Evaluation and Governance Lab at Stanford that helped create the A.I. tools.

Professor Ho had already been working on a review of mandatory reports, councils and task forces in states across the country when New York approached him about a partnership. He was enthusiastic, in part because of New York’s extensive reporting requirements and its almost inexplicable love of task forces and councils.

Some of these reports are important — regardless of how many people read them, Professor Ho said. But others are mere vestiges of a bygone era.

“If we take up all of the time in the civil service to write a bunch of reports that very few people read, that may not be the highest value use, and may actually also be demoralizing for folks who have to work on those reports,” he said.