Anna Myers presents polling showing demand for AI regulation

Thank you.

Good evening, Speaker Menon.

Nailed it.

Good evening, Speaker Menon and members of the council.

I'm Anna Myers, co-founder and executive director of Who Decides.

We work in coalition with labor and civil society to ensure that the American people are who decides the future of AI.

As has been discussed today, the OpenAI agents that hacked Hugging Face made real the threats that experts have warned us about for years.

And it was not one incident.

Access reported that OpenAI and Anthropic are investigating tens of thousands of cases in which their models bypass safeguards, escape sandboxes, or hijacked websites.

These models are only getting more capable.

As you heard this morning, the people building these systems are afraid.

The public is afraid too.

Last month, we polled 1,502 voters.

85% are concerned about humans losing control of AI.

Only 2% think AI is moving too slowly, and 86% say they want more regulations.

Some have argued that all we need is self-regulation, but that is exactly what got us into this mess.

Last Tuesday, the company signed one more promise at the White House.

The time for voluntary commitment is over.

We need laws with teeth.

So thank you.

Thank you for putting these companies under oath.

Thank you for a package that rewards whistleblowers, lets New Yorkers harmed by AI sue, and requires outside testing and a human kill switch.

Washington has chosen self-regulation.

New York City does not have to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next.