Jukay Hsu urges focus on city-controlled AI domains and keeping NYC a tech hub

Thank you.

Hello, great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Speaker Menon, Chair De La Rosa for your leadership, and the City Council for holding this hearing today.

My name is Jukes Su.

I'm the founder of Bright Futures.

It's a research organization focused on building cooperative AI systems for the benefit of humanity.

Before that, I spent 15 years building Pursuit, which trains working class New Yorkers for tech careers and raises their incomes from $16,000 to over $90,000 a year.

Last year, I left behind this work because I saw AI alignment becoming pressing and I believe potentially more consequential.

To be clear, I'm neither AI doomer or an accelerationist.

AI comes with tremendous benefits and potential risks.

A major challenge that I've heard from others, and I feel myself, is that AI can seem like everything and nothing all at once.

It touches on so many issues that action can feel intractable.

Without clarity on where to focus.

Where I think the City Council could provide real, unique leadership is in areas where it has direct ownership and also tangible consequences on each of our daily lives.

Policing is one important example.

Autonomous weapons and the uses of AI is not just a federal military matter.

New York City has the largest municipal police force in the country.

Until we have 110% confidence in these systems, a human should always be in a loop and hold final responsibility and accountability.

This is a civil rights issue where the city's leadership is immediately impactful.

Not setting a policy is also

a choice.

Now, policing is just one of many issues.

What I think is important is that the speed of AI, of machines, is not the same speed as how our society reacts or that of government.

The technology today is not the same as it was a year ago.

Or six months ago.

So I'd urge you all to do two things.

One, use AI to know the good, bad, and the ugly as much as possible.

And two, I hope this hearing is just not one time, but the start of future ones as AI develops, consider both the risks and also all the potential benefits for us.

Sorry, I know I'm a little over time, but last, I want to emphasize also why New York is important.

I hope we don't lose sight of the importance of our city being a thriving technology hub.

Candidly, frontier AI is built in very, very few places, essentially Silicon Valley and China.

For the world at large, New York is the only credible alternative for these systems being built.

New York right now is still the number two tech hub in the world, but it has been losing momentum in the age of AI.

So I also urge you, in addition to what this hearing is about, about the risk and alignment, which I care so deeply about,

Consider policies and actions that ensures New York City remains a center for frontier AI labs and how do we build them.

I really believe

that having founders and researchers in New York matters for ultimately what gets built.

The daily contact here in New York with the richest of humanity and the diversity here in New York will result in technology that's better and also more humane.

Many years from now, we may look back and realize that this was the defining moment and issue of our time, and our actions here were what mattered most.

Doing this will be challenging and hard, so I really thank you all for your leadership in pursuing this task.