Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot caught telling businesses to break the law— New York mayor says terminating the ‘unusable’ bot will help close a budget gap

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themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2026/01/3…

In a press conference this week on New York City’s $12 billion budget gap, Mayor Zohran Mamdani zeroed in on the previous administration’s artificial intelligence chatbot as one of “a number of different things we’re going to pursue for savings.”

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The chatbot, which was released by the Eric Adams administration in fall of 2023, was meant to provide business owners with an accessible way to check city rules and regulations. But as first documented by The Markup and THE CITY, the bot provided answers that, if followed, would lead to illegal behavior by businesses, like taking a cut of employees’ tips.

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It’s insane that public institutions make contracts based on promises or hopes. They should be with minimum requirements to be met by the contracted, or not cost in full.

Would the company still go for the contract? Maybe. At least they’d have to eat cost when they can’t meet a defined baseline, effectively taking responsibility to a degree.

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