New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday night that the federal government has stepped away from regulating artificial intelligence. He urged New Yorkers to push back against the idea that AI’s spread cannot be stopped.
The mayor spoke at Webster Hall in Manhattan during The People’s AI Assembly. The event was hosted by the AI Now Institute, a think tank that studies the social effects of AI.
Actress and activist Ilana Glazer, known for the show “Broad City,” asked the mayor questions about the future of AI in society.
Mamdani told the crowd that the fast rollout of AI is not inevitable. He said public officials should hold AI companies accountable.
“Nothing has to be,” Mamdani said. “There’s a creep that comes with this, and there’s an intent to overwhelm that leaves people feeling as if there is simply no option.”
City Takes Action on AI in Schools and Housing
Last month, Mamdani ordered a ban on AI use in New York City elementary and middle schools.
Glazer, who is a parent, said AI’s arrival in classrooms makes her uneasy. “It feels so non-consensual,” she said. “It wasn’t two years ago. Why does it have to be in schools?”
Over the summer, the mayor also introduced a policy aimed at real estate listings. It would require landlords, brokers, and real estate platforms to clearly disclose when listing photos or videos are made with AI.
The goal is to protect New Yorkers from getting “house-phished,” or tricked by misleading listings.
Mamdani said there has been a “reckless adoption of technology” without a reckoning with its limits. He pointed to the U.S. military’s February strike on a school in Iran that killed more than 150 people, including at least 123 children.
Officials involved in the Pentagon’s internal investigation told Bloomberg that overreliance on AI in targeting was one factor in the attack.
Mamdani Links AI Pushback to IPO Plans
The mayor said AI is often described as if it cannot be questioned. He said some argue that only the companies building it should regulate it.
He noted that Facebook made similar arguments in 2008. He called the approach “an attempt to escape any kind of accountability at any level, without also jeopardizing the potential valuation from an IPO.”
Anthropic is expected to go public this year. OpenAI has said it plans to go public in 2027.
Mamdani also criticized what he called the “complete abdication of federal law” on AI. He said national talks about AI are often framed as an arms race with China, which pushes human concerns aside.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced a Superintelligence Task Force. The group largely focuses on letting powerful AI companies regulate themselves rather than creating new federal rules.
That approach comes as whistleblowers at Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and OpenAI have warned that AI could lead to human extinction.
Mamdani said the country will need a new approach once the current administration leaves office. “There has to be a very different kind of framework in how we think about AI, talk about AI, the accountability we’re willing to bring forward,” he said.
