{"id":365384,"date":"2026-10-06T02:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T02:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365384\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T02:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T02:12:13","slug":"ai-whistleblowers-encourage-nyc-council-to-enforce-more-regulation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365384\/","title":{"rendered":"AI whistleblowers encourage NYC Council to enforce more regulation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence whistleblowers<\/a> painted a dismal picture about the direction the technology is going at a City Council<\/a> hearing Monday, warning local lawmakers to put in place regulations to slow its growth \u2014 even as the companies insist they\u2019re operating with caution.<\/p>\n

The rare Committee of the Whole meeting came as public fears around AI<\/a> have spiked and the Trump administration<\/a> has taken a lax stance on the rapidly developing technology. At the hearing, industry leaders warned of potential dangers like bioengineered plagues, or even an end to humanity.<\/p>\n

Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon<\/a> testified that AI could \u201ccould make nearly everyone\u2019s life better\u201d with advancements in science and medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut on the current path, I think it is more likely than not that humanity loses control to these AIs, and it could end in human extinction,\u201d Coxon told the Council, adding that companies driving this process like OpenAI and Anthropic \u201cneed to take safety much more seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JacobJacob Coxon testifies at the New York City Council hearing\u00a0on artificial intelligence safety in New York, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

Executives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta also testified during the marathon hearing<\/a>, facing dubious lines of questioning from dozens of councilmembers.<\/p>\n

Their testimony on Monday was the first such appearance before any legislative body. But local lawmakers, even for the largest city in the country, have only limited tools with which to regulate the internationally operating companies. Menin said she hopes the Council\u2019s work can serve as an example for lawmakers in D.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government has opted not to regulate the AI industry. They should,\u201d Council Speaker Julie Menin said at a press conference ahead of the hearing. \u201cSo we believe we have a package of ideas that are really good, and that we hope can serve as a model for the federal government or for other states.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FromFrom top left, OpenAI’s Morgan Dwyer, Meta’s Shane Cahill, Googe’s Alice Friend, and Anthropic’s Logan Graham testify via zoom at the New York City Council hearing\u00a0on artificial intelligence safety in New York, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

Menin appeared skeptical of the company representative\u2019s testimony at many parts of the hearing after she started the hearing by asking the executives to quantify the risk of the worst-case scenario outlined by the whistleblowers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I also don\u2019t think it matters,\u201d Morgan Dwyer, head of policy at OpenAI<\/a>, replied, adding that no chance is \u201cremotely acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Menin responded that she was \u201cincredulous\u201d at this answer: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but to say you don\u2019t know and it doesn\u2019t matter is flippant at best.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JulieJulie Menin, speaker of the New York City Council, center, speaks during a hearing on artificial intelligence safety in New York, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

The Open AI rep claimed to have supported the RAISE act \u2014 a state law to regulate AI models that was passed last year \u2014 a claim others refuted, arguing the executives had perjured themselves under oath.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was there \u2014 they actively pushed to water down the bill\u2019s safety requirements,\u201d State Sen. Andrew Gournades said. \u201cIt\u2019s another example of why we can\u2019t trust these companies to regulate themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ex-Google DeepMind researcher Alex Turner<\/a> told the Council he fears the tech may soon evolve to the point where a superintelligent AI swarm could \u201cwrest control of human civilization,\u201d placing the odds of a complete AI takeout at around one in three.<\/p>\n

And former OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo warned that AI\u2019s development could turn into a feedback loop where the technology autonomously designs and codes the next versions of its system, leaving humans to play a cursory role akin to a \u201cboard of directors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a recipe for disaster,\u201d Kokotajlo said, arguing that AI development should be slowed down dramatically while transparency measures are increased.<\/p>\n

\"AA small group of people supporting restrictions on artificial intelligence hold up signs in front of City Hall before a New York City Council hearing on artificial intelligence safety in New York, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

The companies, for their part, emphasized that they value safety and security as they develop new products.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been, I think, sometimes accused of being overly cautious,\u201d Logan Graham, the head of Anthropic\u2019s Frontier Red Team, argued, adding that the company had withheld its most powerful model to date this year \u201cin order to just have more time to even think about\u2026 what to do about these capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Council is currently weighing 10 pieces of legislation aimed at regulating the AI industry. Among those is a bill requiring AI companies operating in New York City to have a human \u201ckill switch\u201d<\/a> function, which would need to be verified by a third party. Violations would carry $25,000 fines, per the bill.<\/p>\n

Other bills being discussed including one that would pay AI whistleblowers a portion of the fines recovered from companies, allow citydwellers to sue if a company had insufficient safeguards that led to malicious behaviors, and require companies contracting with the city to report AI safety incidents within 24 hours.<\/p>\n

\"AA small group of people supporting restrictions on artificial intelligence hold up signs in front of City Hall before a New York City Council hearing on artificial intelligence safety in New York, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, President Trump has largely brushed aside warning about the dangers of AI, instead putting an emphasis on winning a technology arms race against China. Last week, he met with executives from major AI companies at the White House, where he said they signed a voluntary accord to regulate.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mamdani, asked about the hearing on Monday, said he was supportive of the Council\u2019s efforts to regulate AI but emphasized that more oversight must come from the federal government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence whistleblowers painted a dismal picture about the direction the technology is going at a City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[267,9,24,10,692,12,63,87,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-365384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-politics","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}