Williams asks state officials how city can support their work

Thank you.

Yeah, I also just wanted to thank you all for coming.

So the question I have for the state members is how can we be helpful?

I know that there are a ton of resolutions that are supporting state bills.

It would be helpful just to let us know how we can be helpful and how we can work more closely together.

Well, Deputy Speaker, thank you for that.

Thank you for asking that question.

What's really important is this step toward this hearing and this step towards this is very important.

You know, it's a big deal that you guys are having this hearing calling the, you know, the industry here and the different panels.

We have to work on it.

Now, this is hard.

This is difficult.

But we have to work on it head on.

And what's very important is for us to be able to coordinate our efforts.

To see that, you know, we have a good relationship with many of the members.

I have a great relationship with the chair of technology.

It's very important for us to be able to work on this.

And there are many layers to addressing this technology.

And we touched on a lot of them today, but we have to work on this together.

Ditto, and I know how appealing Albany can be, so please come on up and help us as we're rallying for different pieces of legislation and hitting the pavement and getting hard at work.

Thank you, Councilmember.

And I'll just chime in there.

I think, you know, what we heard here today, what you all heard today was many of these companies basically speak out of both sides of their mouths about what they think the appropriate role of government to be is in.

So next year, when we're up in Albany trying to fight to pass all of these different laws and we're, you know, being bombarded by

tens of millions of dollars from these companies with lobbyists and ads and radio ads and text messages and everything, having your voices to go back into your communities and to come up to talk to our colleagues and say, hey, we held this hearing.

They lied to us about X, Y, and Z, A, B, and C.

And like, here's the proof of it.

This is where we can call these companies out when they're trying to have it both ways.

You all experienced that firsthand and you being able to speak to that and remind the public about that time and time and time again

will only further to bolster the momentum that we have on our side to put in place these guardrails and protections, whether it's around bias or safety or any of the other issues that we've been talking about during this hearing.

To follow on on the senator's comments, the companies say different things to different levels of government.

A few weeks ago, I was actually in Brussels.

I met with a few members of the European Parliament to talk about the passage of the EU AI Act.

And we compared what we were lobbied on.

Surprising to me, catastrophic risk didn't really come up in the EU, but they got a lot of lobbying around copyright.

And my assumption is because they thought the courts are stronger on copyright in Europe, and so that's what they lobbied on there, and said very different things in America, in New York State.

I imagine they're saying different things in Albany, as they will say here to you in the city council.

And we should all be sharing notes on what's being said and holding them to account and making sure that it's a consistent message.

The other bit that I would add is the governor has signaled that she wants to strengthen the RAISE Act and put new proposals in her budget proposal.

Please be part of that conversation when the city council submits its budget requests.

Obviously, you should focus on the fiscal needs first and foremost, but the state budget tends to be a broad document.

And if you have policy ideas that for some reason or another need state approval, think of that as another mechanism, another lever that you have to help ensure that you can do the best job for your constituents.