New York City lawmakers are moving to regulate artificial intelligence, unveiling a package of bills Friday that would impose new requirements on AI companies operating in the five boroughs. The proposals include mandatory “kill switches” and financial rewards for whistleblowers who expose violations.
The measures are set for a rare citywide Council hearing next month, bringing all 51 members together to examine the potential threats that rapidly advancing AI technology could pose to New Yorkers.
“New York City is fast becoming the technology and AI capital of the world, which we want to encourage,” Council Speaker Julie Menin said in a statement.
“But that also means we now have an even greater responsibility to ensure that we have the appropriate safeguards in place to protect New Yorkers from unintended consequences.”
Menin has invited the leaders of five major artificial intelligence companies to appear at the Oct. 5 hearing. Letters were sent to Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Sundar Pichai of Google, Elon Musk of SpaceX and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta.
The Council’s effort comes days after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York state will require AI companies to register through a government portal beginning in November. The companies will also have to report serious safety incidents within 72 hours.
Under one of the proposed city laws, companies would be barred from marketing, selling or deploying AI systems in New York City without third-party validation. In practice, outside experts would be required to review the safety claims made by the companies themselves.
Another bill would require every AI tool used in the city to include a so-called kill switch, defined by the Council as a human override capable of shutting down the system.
Companies that fail to meet the requirements could face a $25,000 penalty for each violation.
A separate proposal would establish what the Council described as a “first-in-the-nation” whistleblower program, allowing people who help uncover violations to receive a share of the fines collected from offending companies.
“We have to remember that the city of New York regulates all sorts of industries,” Menin said Thursday during an unrelated news conference.
“We have all sorts of regulations, and yet AI, and we have all the major AI companies located right here in New York, facing very little regulation.”
A Council spokesperson said the proposed rules would apply to companies with offices in New York City. The measures are designed specifically for New Yorkers and would be enforced by the city.
In a news release, the Council said the push for legislation reflects “growing concerns that advanced and frontier AI model development could pose potentially catastrophic risks” if oversight fails to keep pace.
Anxiety over the speed of AI development intensified earlier this month after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, warning that the rapidly expanding technology “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
