Julie Samuels of TechNYC testifies on AI literacy and concerns about high school limits

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairs Krishna and Nandinewitz, Council Members.

I'm very happy to be here.

I'm Julie Samuels.

I'm the CEO of TechNYC, an organization that represents hundreds of tech companies and investors here in the city.

We really spend our time thinking about the future of our economy in the city and ensuring that New Yorkers are part of that future.

This year, CBRE ranked New York as the largest tech talent market in North America for the first time beating the Bay Area.

We're very excited about that.

We rank second in the United States for AI talent, and our students in New York need to be ready for the modern workplace and for higher education,

which we mean believes that AI literacy has to be a genuine part of their education, particularly at the older ages.

And of course with appropriate safeguards.

We agree with a lot of what Mary said.

I've spoken with some of you about that as well.

We fundamentally believe students should never be treated as guinea pigs.

AI must be introduced in a supervised way.

We care about building critical thinking.

We don't want to replace it.

But I feel very strongly, we feel very strongly, we don't want to repeat the mistakes we made with social media.

When new technologies were ignored, when parents and teachers often kind of put their heads under the sand and young people

People navigated them unsupervised before regulations and guidance were put in place.

AI is still in its early stages, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be part of a conversation we're having with students and adults together, learning together.

We do have some concerns about the mayor's new guidance.

We actually are worried that the limits in high school are too limiting.

We worry that it is an insufficient amount of time for students to develop essential skills for their futures and for the economy of the future.

Any policy, especially, we're grateful and we're glad it's a year and we're glad that we're going to be working on it on an ongoing basis.

Any permanent policy should allocate time for AI instruction equal to other subjects.

We fundamentally believe I'm almost done.

Data privacy must be central.

We support New York City Public Schools IRMA process.

It's a policy only as strong as its enforcement, and the public schools need to be given real resources to monitor, evaluate, and enforce.

We fundamentally believe this will only work if, as Mary said, we're focused on privacy, transparency, and security.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.