New York City Council holds AI oversight hearing, reviews 10 regulatory bills

The New York City Council held an AI oversight hearing on Monday, which the Council called the first of its kind in the nation and possibly the world. Speaker Julie Menin said that because the federal government says AI companies can self-regulate, New York City needs to handle it itself, and noted that both New York State and California have discussed a potential "kill switch," a mechanism also written into local legislation, and the hearing asked companies about it. Former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon and former OpenAI employee Daniel Kokotajlo testified as whistleblowers; Coxon said that on the current path, humans are more likely to lose control of AI, and argued that companies operate with a "move fast and fix things later" startup mindset; Kokotajlo said control should not be handed to these companies. SpaceX did not attend; Menin said that after receiving the subpoena, the company replied that it was willing to cooperate with the city government but would not attend, and the city is taking legal action.