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.”
It feels ridiculous I have to say this, but it feels so good to hear about a politician just immediately saying “oh yeah, we needed to figure out where to make cuts, and these shitty AI chat bots seemed like an obvious place to start.”
Based. Good to see him going for common sense easy issues to keep people engaged while he works on the harder to tackle issues.
isn’t going for the common sense easy issue the opposite of “based”?
No because the expectation is they won’t do common sense issues so its based when thry finally do
These days? Really?
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Based is for doing something useful or good.
Thank you. A very useful and helpful response.
Adams is a dickhole collaborator. I’m surprised the contract was only around $600k. How much so you think Adams got on top?
I wish Mamdani the best. There’s so much happening to be able to ingest it all, but so far he seems genuine. My natural glare of “what SHIT are you up to!??” has so far yielded nothing; Good. More!
nothing; Good
A semicolon saves the day.
I’m more concerned that he’ll have an uphill battle against vested interests than anything he might do himself.
Oh, absolutely! He will stumbling blocks thrown at him from every which way. And then his lack of progress will be pointed at by the propagandists: “look at this Democratic Socialist who did nothing! Blah blah muslim blah blah blah”
Just the fact that he added Lina Khan to his team says so much about him.
In a just world Khan would be a prominent political figure on her own, but she’ll do good things in this position.
Oh, look, a leader leading…how strange, not beholden to anything but his constituents? I love this guy.
We’re not used to seeing that around here. Feels a bit odd.
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.
It’s insane that public institutions make contracts based on promises or hopes. They should be with minimum requirements to be met by the contracted, or not cost in full.
Would the company still go for the contract? Maybe. At least they’d have to eat cost when they can’t meet a defined baseline, effectively taking responsibility to a degree.
Based. Those things will only get pricier.
I asked why NYC had the shittiest mayor a year or so ago… Now I’m wondering why CA doesn’t have one this good.
To be fair, we did at one point… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_Max_II?wprov=sfla1
furiously reading through the handbook
…There’s no rule that says…
Maximus Mighty-Dog Mueller II
Real heroism.
It is also the environmentally responsible thing to do.
I like him better every day.
He’s got a lot of low-hanging fruit to pluck and he’s not afraid to roll out a wheelbarrow for it.
This is the kind of waste, fraud, and abuse that Elon was supposed to be getting rid of.
DOGE was Federal not Local
That, in and of itself, is not something that can bridge this kind of a gap, but it’s an indication of the ways in which money has been spent while refusing to account for the actual costs of what these programs are.
This is what I see as the important bit, and indicates both a level head and clear communication. We need more politicians across the board who can answer directly like this, and not try to inflate or exaggerate.
Yeah, this really was an excellent answer. I’m impressed by how he used this example to illustrate the wider strategy without it feeling like a weird kind of “we will cut programs like this and then everything will be fine”. It gives the sense that this is being used as an example because it’s simple enough to be at the top of a large pile of potential savings, which will take time and work to dig through.
To put it a different way, his answer abstracts away the right stuff. He doesn’t pretend that everything will be as simple and easy as cutting this one program was.
the bot provided answers that, if followed, would lead to illegal behavior by businesses, like taking a cut of employees’ tips.
and
Today, the bot advises visitors to “ask an NYC government question only” and cautions that “responses may occasionally produce inaccurate or incomplete content.” Visitors must agree to accept the bot’s limitations before using it.
Way to go, Mayor Mamdani!
Has he made any comment about the massive data center increasing the cost of living there yet? /gen
Edit: For those downvoting, /gen means I’m asking genuinely if he has commented on it.
