Tomorrow, Oct. 5, all 51 members of the City Council will sit for a rare Committee of the Whole hearing on artificial intelligence. Speaker Julie Menin deserves credit for making AI safety a priority for the Council.
She has called on the heads of OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google and X to testify. Good. They should show up and answer hard questions about safety and oversight.
But I keep thinking about who else belongs in that room.
The tenant in Housing Court without a lawyer. The family whose benefits application is stuck in the system. The immigrant delivery worker on the road from morning until late at night. These New Yorkers have a stake in how AI rolls out in our city, and they deserve a seat next to the CEOs.
I know, because asking them has been my job for the past year. I direct the Artificial Intelligence Community Engagement Initiative, known as AICE, a first-of-its-kind $1 million program funded by the City Council.
AICE trains 22 community groups across all five boroughs to bring AI literacy home to the people they serve. The Arab American Association of New York working with the Arab community in Bay Ridge; Older Adults Technology Services (OATS) working with older New Yorkers; the Door who’s working with vulnerable young people. Together, these community partners have run more than 100 workshops and listening sessions for nearly 2,000 New Yorkers. Here’s what we heard.
First, everyday New Yorkers want in. At one Bronx partner, seniors who had never used a chatbot were soon asking whether it could help them manage medical appointments. Immigrant parents there wanted help writing to their kids’ teachers and making sense of confusing forms. Teenagers in one partner organization’s youth program built a video game in an afternoon, and AI is now part of their entrepreneurship class.
Second, that excitement comes with real fear. In immigrant communities, the first question was often where their words go once they type them, and whether that data could end up with immigration enforcement. Others pushed back on the water and electricity used by the data centers that power AI. Some wanted nothing to do with a technology that might take their jobs, or even wipe out humanity. These aren’t fringe worries. They are policy questions, raised by the people who will live with the answers.
Yet right now, those voices are missing. AI policy debates mostly happen among companies, think tanks and academics, not the communities affected or the nonprofits that serve them. Nearly 100 AI bills are pending in Albany, and everyday New Yorkers are almost entirely absent from that debate too.
Here’s how we change that.
First, the Council should make room for everyday New Yorkers at the hearing itself. AICE community groups that have spent the past year leading these conversations are ready to testify, early in the day and alongside the CEOs.
Second, elected officials and funders should invest in community AI literacy with the same urgency that AI is being adopted. That means training for the nonprofit workers who serve New Yorkers every day, in more languages, and staff time for groups to help their communities understand this technology deeply.
Third, community input should become a standing part of how AI policy gets made. Before the city or state adopts or regulates an AI tool that touches housing, jobs, benefits or immigration, the people affected should be asked first.
AI is going to reshape this city either way. What tomorrow can point the way on, is whether the New Yorkers most affected get to help steer it. The CEOs got letters. Everyday New Yorkers deserve an invitation too.
Choi is managing partner of Equitas Partners and directs the City Council’s Artificial Intelligence Community Engagement (AICE) Initiative.