New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a public event on Monday night to argue that Washington has given up on governing artificial intelligence, and that cities and residents should stop treating the technology's spread as something that simply happens to them. The Mamdani AI remarks, made at Webster Hall in Manhattan, are the clearest statement yet of how the largest US city intends to handle AI while federal policy leans toward letting companies police themselves.
"Nothing has to be," Mamdani told the audience, according to TechCrunch reporter Rebecca Bellan, who covered the event. He was answering the idea that the current pace of AI adoption is inevitable.
What Mamdani said about AI and federal law
The conversation took place at The People's AI Assembly, hosted by the AI Now Institute, a research group that studies the social effects of AI. The actor and activist Ilana Glazer, co-creator of "Broad City", asked the questions.
Mamdani's main points, as reported by TechCrunch, were these:
- The rapid rollout of AI is a choice, and public officials should hold AI companies accountable for it.
- He criticised what he called a "reckless adoption of technology" that does not reckon with the technology's limits.
- He described a "complete abdication of federal law" on AI.
- He said national debate is framed around an arms race with China, which pushes aside questions about how AI affects people.
- He said a different federal framework will be needed after the current administration.
He also drew a comparison with social media. AI, he said, is treated as if it cannot be wrong, and its developers argue that only they are able to regulate it. Facebook, he noted, made similar arguments in 2008. In his view, those arguments are about avoiding accountability and protecting the valuations companies hope to reach when they go public. TechCrunch noted that Anthropic is expected to list this year and that OpenAI has said it will go public in 2027.
The military example he raised
Mamdani pointed to the US military strike on a school in Iran in February, which 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 of the factors, TechCrunch reported. Mamdani used the case to argue that treating AI output as reliable has real costs.
What New York City has already done
The speech came with a record behind it. City Hall has taken two concrete steps on AI this year, according to TechCrunch.
- A classroom ban. In September, Mamdani ordered a ban on AI use in the city's elementary and middle schools. Glazer, who is a parent, said on stage that AI arriving in classrooms makes her nervous.
- Disclosure in property listings. Over the summer, the mayor introduced a policy requiring landlords, brokers and real estate platforms to disclose when photos or videos in a listing were made with AI. The aim is to protect residents from "house-phished" listings, in which AI-made visuals give a misleading picture of a property.
Both measures use powers the city already has over its own schools and over consumer protection in housing. Neither requires new federal or state law, which is part of Mamdani's point: local government can act without waiting for Congress.
The federal picture he is reacting to
Mamdani's criticism lands at a specific moment. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced a Superintelligence Task Force. TechCrunch describes its approach as largely focused on letting powerful AI companies regulate themselves rather than creating new federal restrictions. We covered the task force's first meeting and its request that AI labs report incidents earlier this week.
The gap between those two positions is wide. At the federal level, the emphasis is on speed and on competing with China. In New York, the mayor is arguing for limits in specific settings, starting with children and housing, and for companies to carry responsibility when their systems cause harm.
Why the Mamdani AI stance matters beyond New York
New York City runs the largest public school system in the United States and one of the biggest rental markets in the world. Rules it sets for schools and housing affect millions of people directly, and vendors that sell to the city have to comply.
There are three practical effects to watch.
- Education technology vendors selling AI tutoring or writing tools will find the city's elementary and middle schools closed to those products while the ban stands.
- Property platforms that offer AI image editing or virtual staging will need labels on listings shown to New York renters and buyers.
- Other cities looking for ways to act on AI without new state law now have two working examples to copy or adapt.
The speech also signals that Mamdani sees AI as a political issue he wants voters to engage with, not only a technical one. His call for residents to "push back" suggests more city measures may follow, though he did not announce any new policy at the event, according to the TechCrunch report.
What remains unclear
Several questions were left open. The mayor did not set out what a replacement federal framework should contain, beyond saying one is needed. TechCrunch's report does not name any specific bill or executive order he wants changed. It is also not yet known how the classroom ban is being enforced in practice, or whether it covers teachers' own use of AI for lesson planning as well as student use.
For now, the message from City Hall is direct. Federal policy is moving toward self-regulation, and the country's biggest city is moving the other way, one sector at a time.
