Mamdani Challenges AI Firms’ Power Over New York

“Our risk, their reward,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said of AI and data centers. He pointed to electricity bills and environmental effects, while powerful companies keep the public in the dark about AI’s costs. Mamdani supports a one-year pause on data-center construction in New York state. Companies may build the infrastructure, but residents must weigh the consequences.

Who Pays for the Expansion

Mamdani said training a version of ChatGPT used as much energy as powering all of San Francisco for three days. People worry about electricity rates and the environment, he said, while the societal cost of an AI query remains hard to determine because powerful companies are opaque. He compared technology companies’ calls to regulate themselves with Facebook’s arguments in 2008. Asked whether he thought the economy was in an AI bubble and whether it might pop, he answered, “Yes.”

The proposed pause isn't the only government response he discussed. Mamdani said some California municipalities had begun banning data-center construction. He called opposition to data centers bipartisan and said his view had similarities to that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, despite their political differences. The interview also addressed the limits of government action: Mamdani said U.S. policy often justified inaction by describing AI as a race with China.

Mamdani said his administration had proposed a generative-AI moratorium in New York City schools from 2K through eighth grade. Students need room to try, fail and learn, he said. He opposed using them as “guinea pigs” for technology companies’ profit motives. AI could affect job satisfaction as well as employment numbers. He recalled a mathematics professor interviewed by The Daily who cried while discussing AI’s ability to solve a longstanding problem and what that meant for mathematicians’ work.

The Rules, and Who Gets to Set Them

Mamdani cited a new Department of Consumer and Worker Protection rule that bars real estate agents from using AI-generated apartment images, along with another rule limiting chatbot “doom loops” affecting New Yorkers. AI's effects are already real, he said. He cited hallucinations that he said almost led to a war with China and outdated information that he said led the U.S. government to bomb an Iranian children’s school.

He opposed private surveillance powers such as those WIRED reported at Madison Square Garden, where owner James Dolan was suing the publication over its reporting. Mamdani called legislation introduced by City Council member Shahana Hanif an important response. He also cited reports of a lawyer barred from Radio City Music Hall while attending a show with her child because of her professional work. The examples link institutional and private power: government and technology businesses are shaping rules that govern people’s access, work and information.

Asked whether technology was making democracy stronger or weaker, Mamdani answered, “Still weaker.” Family members had sent him AI-generated videos believing they were real, he said. One was a fabricated 45-minute debate with a European member of parliament, where an AI version of him supposedly defeated its counterpart. He described a “real crisis of faith as to what is real right now.” Asked whether he trusted Sam Altman and others in the technology industry, he answered, “No.”

Politics, Platforms and Material Needs

Mamdani said democracy should extend beyond choosing leaders at the ballot box. Working-class people in New York and across the country face unaffordable rent, child care, groceries and electricity, he said. The Democratic Socialists of America’s focus on dignity and material gains for working-class people drew him to the organization, whose members make decisions, he said.

His account of government action also included a state-funded child-care program. Mamdani said Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to provide $1.2 billion for Universal 2K on the eighth day of his administration. One family whose child enrolled had previously paid $2,300 a month for child care and sent the child to another state, with the grandmother driving at 4 a.m. The family saved more than $20,000, he said, and could put the money toward a house. Funding was sufficient to expand the program from 2,000 2-year-olds to 12,000 the next year, Mamdani said. The plan calls for expanding to all of the Bronx and Staten Island, with a goal of serving every 2-year-old in every borough.

Mamdani said the city and state had worked together on a balanced budget despite a significant fiscal deficit. He defended his endorsement and campaign support for Hochul by pointing to what he described as material benefits for working-class New Yorkers. He also criticized Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman’s AI-generated campaign videos, support for ICE and statements about child care and Medicaid. Mamdani said Blakeman called universal child care a benefit for “lazy parents,” said he would cut the program and proposed cutting Medicaid in half. “I have yet to meet a lazy parent in New York City,” Mamdani said.

Mamdani said government must communicate through platforms people already use. After Spanish-speaking New Yorkers said they needed a channel, he said, the administration created the Spanish-language WhatsApp channel El Chisme Oficial de NYC. It posts policy information, including voice notes of Mamdani speaking what he called “incredibly halting Spanish.” Videos can reach more than a million people, he said, and press releases shouldn't be hidden in obscure places. On talking points supplied to creators, he said they explain policies and are comparable to information in press releases.

Looking ahead to 2036, Mamdani said he hoped the Democratic Party would recognize the working class as the country’s majority and fight for it, and that “the people who run it have to be the American people.” Asked what he would be doing in 10 years, he said, “Hopefully I will have finished a second term, but I can never take that for granted.”