Coming soon: New York City’s hearing on AI risks

New York City's City Council is scheduled to hold a hearing on AI policy on Monday starting at 11am Eastern Time, with a number of AI-relevant proposals under consideration. The hearing comes less than a day after Politico reported that Sam Altman said the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of the technology and people having agency.

Gary Marcus, a scientist, author and NYU Professor Emeritus who cofounded an AI startup acquired by Uber, said he plans to testify. He wrote that because New York City is a large market, he believes he can help pick up some of the slack where the federal government is falling short, noting that a number of states are also trying to fill in the slack.

In a preview of his remarks dated Monday, October 5, 2026, Marcus said contemporary AI is powerful and impressive but difficult to control. He wrote that general purpose agents with broad internet access have led to tens of thousands of hacking incidents, and that deep fakes have led to convincing propaganda and nonconsensual deepfaked porn. He said chatbots have been implicated in a number of suicides and even mass murder. He added that he doubts human extinction is imminent despite headlines, but said AI comes with serious risks. He also said the current administration in Washington is deeply tied to big tech companies and unwilling to act.

Marcus called for an FDA-like regulatory regime for AI in which developers bring software to independent review and must demonstrate that benefits outweigh risks before gaining market access. He said he made the same point to Louisiana Senator Kennedy in May 2023 at the US Senate, and that the Senate did nothing.

Marcus urged the council to support a bill on third party validation, which he said would demand independent regulatory review for AI used within New York City's borders and protect citizens from some AI harms. He said events of recent days suggest OpenAI may have fired employees who were whistleblowing, and that without strong whistleblower protections everyone is in trouble. He encouraged people to sign up to testify in person or by Zoom.