The urgent debate New York City should be having about AI

The fight for our city's future needs to start now.

The rise of AI has me thinking a lot about New York City history.

This isn’t the first time we’ve faced a dizzying technological revolution with the power to reshape our city. The telegraph made us a global financial capital. Electricity lit our streets, ignited our nightlife, and powered the subway that bound the boroughs together. Steel and elevators sent our skyline soaring.

None of this was guaranteed. Each breakthrough carried risks and myriad downsides. But New York managed them by investing, adapting, and planning relentlessly. We argued fiercely every step of the way. The lesson is clear: this city thrives not when technological change washes over us, but when we take charge and shape it.

Artificial intelligence will be our biggest test yet. So far, we are failing that test.

If you are under the impression that AI is just hype, you need to update your thinking. The pace of advancement is exponential. Just 18 months ago, cutting edge systems struggled with basic reasoning. Today they can draft research documents, solve math, write code, diagnose illness, mimic speech, and compose music.

Further AI advancement is being driven by staggering levels of investment in algorithmic research, chip design, and data center construction. Most striking of all, AI tools themselves are now aiding in the development of new models. This rocket is taking off fast.

This pace of progress will bring opportunities and risks that are difficult to fathom. No part of life will be untouched—including the way we work, learn, play, heal and relate to others. Some experts are predicting an era of unprecedented abundance. Others are warning of catastrophe.

The impact this will have on New York City will likely exceed even that of electricity or the automobile. The pillars of our economy—finance, law, consulting, media, advertising, and design—are first in line to be transformed by the automation of knowledge work, with potentially huge economic benefits…and also massive job loss. This may in turn reshape how and to what extent businesses use office space, with profound consequences for our built environment. AI also promises to supercharge the work of our city’s life sciences sector, accelerating the search for new cures. That progress could in turn upend the role of New York’s hospital system, as more care shifts toward outpatient clinics and home-based treatment. There is a similar likelihood for disruption in our education, entertainment, and transportation sectors. The potential upsides and downsides are everywhere.

In the face of such tectonic changes, it’s hard as a policy maker to not just throw up your hands and wait to see how this all plays out, especially since no one can predict the exact timeline of future AI breakthroughs. But there are actions we need to take and decisions we need to make immediately—not just at the national level, but here locally as well.

Job number one should be to drag New York City government into the 21st century, using new tools to speed up approval of affordable housing, make it easier to apply for food stamps, more quickly identify emerging local outbreaks, detect fraud inside City agencies, and much more.

We need to reboot education. Pretending we can keep AI out of the classroom is fantasy, and will put our kids at a disadvantage when they enter the workforce. Instead, we should make sure students learn to use these tools wisely and understand the strengths and limitations of the technology that will shape their future. This shift won’t just require new curricula, it will mean rethinking the concept of homework, redesigning assessments, and empowering teachers with new ways to guide students.

The functioning of City government itself will face serious challenges in this new era. The rise of AI agents could mean a surge in demand for licensing, regulatory enforcement, 311 calls—and even a flood of lawsuits generated and filed with the help of AI. We should be preparing our bureaucracy now, before it is overwhelmed.

New York City can play a direct role in mitigating the more dire threats of AI. We should establish a Center for AI Safety, to bring researchers together in computer science, biology, law, and ethics. Its mission would be to help ensure we understand how these models work, how they might fail, and how they can be kept aligned with human values.

Many weighty questions loom on the horizon. How will we support unemployed New Yorkers if there is a massive wave of job loss? How much privacy are we willing to give up to improve public safety? How do we protect New York’s creative professionals’ right to decide if AI trains on their work? How do we meet our local climate goals given intense energy use by data centers? How can we prevent AI from further concentrating wealth and power in the hands of the few?

I don’t claim to have the answers to all these questions. But this I know: We should already be furiously debating them. Somehow, in a city famous for its loud arguments there is currently an eerie silence on the topic of AI.

Why is this? Many policymakers are in the grips of denialism, clinging to the idea that AI is just hype. Others, especially among my fellow Democrats, have such an intensely negative view of Big Tech (not without reason!) that they refuse to engage at all beyond blanket criticisms of the technology. I actually share many of their concerns, but it would be a grave mistake to cede this terrain to people who care far less than we do about democracy, fairness, and shared prosperity. I personally don’t want the MAGA crowd dominating the AI debate.

New York City history offers us lessons on what happens when we refuse to engage with technological advances. As containerized shipping started to revolutionize global trade in the mid-20th century, New York looked the other way. We failed to modernize our ports, ultimately costing us thousands of longshoremen jobs when cargo moved elsewhere. Likewise we spent years pretending the rise of app-based ride share wasn’t happening (I know, I was in the City Council at the time). Yellow taxi drivers soon got crushed and congestion got worse.

Ultimately, technology is simply a force. It can make life—and our city—better or worse. It made New York an international media hub, gave us world-class hospitals, and took our cultural creations around the globe. But it also brought car-centered sprawl, social media-induced isolation, and empty storefronts.

Whether New York is ultimately shaped positively or negatively by the AI revolution is yet to be determined. But I don’t plan on sitting back passively just watching it unfold. I plan to push myself to engage, to learn, to debate, to fight if needed so that our city comes out stronger. You should too.