New York City’s robot mayor could soon be coming to a phone line owned by you.
Mayor Adams revealed Monday that his administration has been putting out foreign language, artificial intelligence-generated robocalls in his own voice — despite the fact that he’s only fluent in English.
The revelation about Adams’ use of AI came during an announcement Monday about his “Artificial Intelligence Action Plan,” the city’s first step in creating a framework for how to use AI to streamline municipal government.
As part of the action plan, the city unveiled its first AI chatbot, which can be found on the MyCity Business portal and is intended to help business owners more quickly navigate city bureacracy.
“You can use or abuse anything,” Adams said during his City Hall press briefing. “If we stay away from moving forward because we’re afraid someone is going to abuse it, you won’t get anything done. And this administration is not about sitting around. We’re about getting things done.”
The tech-friendly mayor’s own use of AI to reach out to foreign language speakers hits on the very issue of use or abuse. According to the mayor, he used the robocalls to invite foreign language speakers to city-run hiring halls.
On one hand, it’s a practical use of new technology to reach constituents. On the other, it would suggest to some robocall recipients something that isn’t true: that the mayor can actually speak the language they’re hearing an AI-generated version of his voice speaking.
Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, called the mayor’s use of AI-generated robocalls “unethical” and described it as an example of a “deep fake,” a technique that relies on artificial intelligence to create realistic-looking images or fake audio recordings used to mislead the public.
“The mayor is making deep fakes of himself,” Fox Cahn said. “This is deeply unethical, especially on the taxpayer’s dime. Using AI to convince New Yorkers that he speaks languages that he doesn’t is deeply Orwellian. Yes, we need announcements in all of New Yorkers’ native languages, but the deep fakes are just a creepy vanity project.”
Adams didn’t seem fazed about the ethical implications about the robocalls, though, and defended them as “using the tool properly.”
When asked directly about them, he said the question boils down to weighing whether the city government reaches New Yorkers “who have historically been locked out.”
He suggested that the “broader conversations” about the ethics of AI are ones for “philosophical people.”
“I gotta run a city, and I have to be able to speak to people in the languages they understand,” he said. “I was excited when I could have my voice go over the phone to a person who speaks Mandarin, and they were able to hear their mayor speak to them in their language and say, ‘Come to this hiring hall.’”
Adams said those calls did not include a disclaimer pointing out that the voice recording was AI generated.
“We don’t do a ‘Hi, this is Mayor Adams, and I don’t speak Mandarin. This is an AI that’s speaking to you right now,’” he said.
“You may find it hard to believe that sometimes you call for services and you’re getting an AI response,” he continued. “All you know at the end of the time that you called for those services, you got the answer to your question. You could care less if it was a machine, or it was actually a human being.”
A press spokesman for Adams did not immediately provide audio recordings of the AI-generated robocalls.
Adams is now among a few politicians in the country and abroad who’ve used AI voice-cloning to speak in a language in which they are not fluent.
The city’s new AI action plan includes a list of 37 initiatives and actions, many of which appear difficult to quantify. The list includes items like “encourage alignment on AI skills and duties” and “support AI piloting.”
More specifics were forthcoming about the city’s new AI chat bot, although city officials were not immediately able to quantify how much it will cost to run.
The bot is featured on the city’s Department of Small Business Services’ website and allows business owners to pose questions about nuts and bolts issues like how to apply for permits and loans.
“There are 2,000 pages of information on the MyCity Business site,” said Small Business Services Commissioner Kevin Kim. “Now, thanks to the chatbot, your new executive assistant, you will never have to waste time ever again going page to page, looking for the information you want and need. No more Googling. No more visiting multiple sites.”
Mayor Adams unveils the Knightscope K5 autonomous security robot during a press conference on Friday, September 22, 2023 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
Lawmakers worldwide are now wrestling with the implications of how artificial intelligence can be used and what guardrails should be put in place around the potential for negative outcomes.
In New York State, Assemblyman Clyde Vanel (D-Queens) is working on several bills to codify what should be done in order to use AI ethically.
“The questions that generative AI collides with are authorship, copyrights, ownership,” Vanel said, adding that the mayor’s use of the technology poses a question about authorship.
Vanel noted that such questions aren’t limited to the mayor, though, and pointed to his own experience and how he used AI to help draft legislation.
“I attributed and said, ‘This bill was partly researched and developed by artificial intelligence,’ and I cited the program I used,” he said. “But there’s no law for that now.”
Adams and other city officials were quick to assure the public Monday that they’re taking into account the potential for negative outcomes, but they emphasized the potential for making government more efficient and easier for everyday people to get answers from.
“This isn’t the Age of the Terminators,” said Adams’ Chief Technology Officer Matt Fraser. “That’s not what we’re talking about here. As a government, there are ways that we can do things much smarter, and artificial intelligence will help us get there.”
Fraser predicted that the city’s use of AI will eventually be used to better connect New Yorkers to public benefits they’re entitled to.
But the example he and Adams and other city officials pointed to most Monday was the city’s new chatbot, which allows people to enter in business-related questions and, in many cases, get detailed responses.
In situations where someone needs to speak to a human being, Adams said that option will remain available.
His announcement does not take place in a vacuum. The city is facing fiscal hard times, due in part to the migrant crisis and the $12 billion the city expects to spend on it by 2025. When asked about the efficiency AI could mean for city government and the potential that city workers could lose their jobs as a result, Adams said his intent is not to replace employees.
“This is not a tool we want to use to displace manpower,” he said. “This is not going to bring down our population of employees. This is giving them a real tool.
