Mamdani: AI not inevitable, feds abdicated on rules

Mamdani's remarks came at a moment when, in his framing, the federal government is doing little to regulate AI, leaving cities to act on their own. He pointed to President Donald Trump’s Superintelligence Task Force, announced earlier this month, which largely focuses on allowing powerful AI companies to self-regulate rather than creating new federal restrictions.

The mayor placed his argument in a longer history of tech companies resisting outside oversight. He noted that Facebook made similar arguments back in 2008, and said the current posture is "an attempt to escape any kind of accountability at any level, without also jeopardizing the potential valuation from an IPO." Anthropic is expected to debut on the public markets this year, and OpenAI has said it will go public in 2027.

His two local moves — the school ban and the real-estate disclosure policy aimed at preventing "house-phishing" — challenge the assumption that schools and the public must simply accept AI as it arrives. Mamdani framed the alternative as a matter of consent and scrutiny: "Nothing has to be," he said, warning of "a creep that comes with this" and "an intent to overwhelm that leaves people feeling as if there is simply no option."