In Nyc, Mamdani Cedes Ai Regulation Lane

NEW YORK — A prominent New York City politician took centerstage in the AI debate Monday — and it wasn’t Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

In a much anticipated hearing that featured a litany of dystopian predictions, City Council Speaker Julie Menin grilled representatives from four leading AI firms who appeared virtually before the 51-member legislative body. The lawmaker emerged from the marathon session as City Hall’s chief AI antagonist.

“It's disappointing that they can't seem to answer some of the most basic, rudimentary questions: They can't quantify what the risk is of a cataclysmic event. They can't answer the question of whether or not they would release any of their models that failed an internal safety test or third-party validation test,” Menin told reporters. “They couldn't answer if they even have catastrophic insurance [and] they couldn't answer if the company should be liable if there's catastrophic damage, death, injury, etc.”

While Mamdani has proven his ability to seize and hold the spotlight with zeitgeist-y issues — think affordability, housing and Gaza — he has ceded the spotlight on AI regulation to Menin, even as concerns over the emerging technology are becoming the defining political issue of the moment. That has given one of his chief political rivals, whose very job is designed as a check on the executive branch, fuel to boost her profile on an issue that resonates deeply with voters.

Mamdani, meanwhile, had relatively little or new to say on the subject of artificial intelligence Monday, sticking mainly to his standard talking point that regulating the technology should be led by the federal government.

“There has to be regulation of this technology at every single level — we’re talking about a technology that affects our nation as a whole,” the mayor said. “This is not a New York City-specific question. Therefore I think the place where we need the most urgent response to this is at the national level.”

Some experts would agree in principle.

Tech:NYC, a New York City organization looking to boost the city’s technology economy, wrote in prepared testimony that regulation in New York City stands to kick off a chaotic patchwork of municipal rules around the country that would be unworkable for small businesses and startups using AI products. Establishing rules, he argued, makes more sense on the state or federal levels.

New York state, for example, is pursuing legislation called the RAISE Act that largely mirrors regulatory efforts in California.

“If New York City adopts its own validation regime, liability rules, incident-reporting deadlines, and advertising disclosures, other cities will follow with their own versions,” Matt Henning, Tech:NYC’s director of government affairs, wrote.

But as Menin noted Monday, the White House has flatly ruled out any regulatory framework. Lawmakers in Congress and the Senate show no signs of doing otherwise. And the city, she argued, is more nimble than legislators in Albany.

“The federal government has opted at the moment not to regulate AI. So are we all just supposed to throw up our hands and say, ‘Okay, that's all right?’” she asked. “We are the largest city in the country. I think we’ve got some terrific bills on the table, and we have the ability to pass these bills very quickly, and I think other jurisdictions may take a long time before they act.”

When it comes to artificial intelligence, Mamdani’s administration has banned AI use in elementary and middle schools and has acknowledged the dangers frontier AI models pose to humanity.

During Monday’s lengthy affair, several AI whistleblowers testified to those dangers and what might happen if nothing is done: In a worst-case scenario, swarms of AI bots bring down much of human civilization.

“The superintelligent swarm can inflict many harms via blackmail, hacking, engineered flags, and AI palatable weapons like drones,” said Alex Turner, a whistleblower from Google’s DeepMind. “For the swarm to achieve its misaligned priorities, it might take control of key infrastructure and government functions to ensure humans didn’t get in the way.”

One telling moment illustrated public antipathy over unchecked AI growth.

Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher, took specific aim at top AI executives, saying that even if their companies do manage to keep AI in human hands, they should not be trusted to ethically control it.

“There's a very real chance that they could use it to become dictators or oligarchs here in the United States,” Coxon said.

A member of the public shouted in response: “They already are.”

Hours before the hearing began, POLITICO published an interview with OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman, who said “we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”

That did not sit well with Menin.

“I think Sam Altman's comments are not acceptable. Saying that we as a society should bear that risk for the benefit of AI is not a premise that I buy,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview Monday evening. “We all know the benefits of AI. They're unquestionable: The medical breakthroughs. The science breakthroughs. The innovation, efficiency. All of that is terrific. But that also requires responsible safeguards.”

Several administration officials testified at Monday's hearing. Sam Levine, commissioner of the Department of Worker and Consumer Protection, said he supports the Council's move to create a private right of action that would make it easier to sue AI firms.

A Mamdani spokesperson said the mayor also expressed support for the Council's hearing and pointed to actions the city is taking to protect New Yorkers from potential AI ills. In addition to banning AI in public schools, the administration is proposing a rule that would allow New Yorkers to connect with a human during customer service calls — instead of being trapped in conversation with an AI chatbot — and has floated another rule that would require real estate firms to disclose if AI was used to generate or edit images in apartment listings.

While representatives from the four main AI firms did not answer many of Menin’s questions at the hearing, they also appeared supportive of several Council proposals and reiterated the potential benefits of AI in the medical and scientific fields.

“We welcome smart regulation, and we have actively advocated for it in New York state, across the country and around the world,” Anthropic’s Logan Graham said in his opening remarks.