Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot caught telling businesses to break the law

Summary

This article is coreported with The Markup, now a part of CalMatters, uses investigative reporting, data analysis, and software engineering to challenge technology to serve the public good. Sign up for Klaxon, a newsletter that delivers our stories and tools directly to your inbox. This article is co-reported with THE CITY, a non-profit newsroom that serves the people of New York. Sign up for its newsletter, The Scoop. In a press conference this week on New York City’s $12 billion budget gap, Mayor Zohran Mamdani zeroed in on the previous administration’s artificial intelligence chatbot as one of “a number of different things we’re going to pursue for savings.” The chatbot, which was released by the Eric Adams administration in fall of 2023, was meant to provide business owners with an accessible way to check city rules and regulations. But as first documented by The Markup and THE CITY, the bot provided answers that, if followed, would lead to illegal behavior by businesses, like taking a cut of employees’ tips. A spokesperson for the mayor, Dora Pekec, confirmed in a text message that the new administration plans to take down the chatbot. She said a member of the Mamdani transition team had seen reporting on the bot from The Markup and THE CITY and presented it to the mayor as a possible place to save funds. Artificial Intelligence NYC’s AI Chatbot Tells Businesses to Break the Law The Microsoft-powered bot says bosses can take workers’ tips and that landlords can discriminate based on source of incomeMarch 29, 2024 6:00 a.m. UTC At the press conference, Mamdani blamed Adams for the budget shortfall, saying he had been handed “a poisoned chalice.” To close the deficit, he said he would raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations and look “under the hood” of the city’s budget for potential savings. When pressed by reporters on what he might cut, he singled out the chatbot. “The previous administration had an AI chatbot that was functionally unusable,” Mamdani said....