Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic sci-fi concept. Even if you aren’t on ChatGPT or seeing AI-driven innovations in your phone apps, you are encountering it every day: Major health care, banking, human resources and retail operations are using it on the back end of their operations, as are many other industries. It is part of your daily life, whether you know it or not.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s launch of the FutureWorks Commission is an important acknowledgment of that reality. Her goal to ensure New Yorkers can “use AI to their advantage” without becoming its victims is the right one to set.
Unfortunately, a blue-ribbon commission of experts examining the transition is not enough to protect New Yorkers.
Hochul highlights programs like AI Prep for internships and jobs, AI training for small businesses and responsible‑use training for state employees. This is important, but training without labor standards creates a race to the bottom with a better résumé.
If New York is serious about responsible AI, it needs to prioritize a New York-centric, worker-first strategy that moves as fast as the technology itself.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs and drive unemployment as high as 10% to 20% within a few years. Ford CEO Jim Farley has been just as blunt, predicting AI will replace “literally half” of white-collar workers. In New York City, entry-level corporate jobs have dropped sharply in recent years, a trend the state itself suggests may be linked, in part, to AI adoption. According to Stanford, training compute — the amount of computing power needed to build AI systems — doubles every five months and datasets every eight months. In other words, the capabilities of these systems are accelerating faster than most institutions can respond.
That is not a trend to study at a distance using advocates. Workers need New York to act now. Any state AI initiative that touches workers through commissions, training programs, state procurement and research investments should be designed and implemented in coordination with programs that work.
Luckily, there are worker-rooted institutions with the capacity to deliver, not just advise. I lead one of them. The Consortium for Worker Education, which is the workforce development arm of the NYC Central Labor Council, supports workers in their current professions and help them transition to new ones. Organizations like mine can scale quickly while keeping workers’ needs front and center, and they must be part of the solution.
Based on my experience, I believe New York should commit now to five essential tenets for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence. These should be non‑negotiables.
The governor is correct to want to protect New Yorkers and their jobs during this seismic transition. But New York’s AI legacy will be measured by the role of working people, and whether the path to the middle class can be preserved.
Marco A. Carrión is the president of the Consortium for Worker Education.