AI in NY-7: On Our Terms, Not Theirs

AI and technology are developing at an exponential rate. Whether you are a teacher seeing your lesson plans infused with chatbots, a worker worried about automation impacting your job, or someone seeing your utility bills rise, this is affecting all of our lives. These fears cut across every community, regardless of party. 

Left unchecked and unregulated, data center construction and operation have the potential to cause catastrophic and lasting damage to local environmental and public health. Automation without safeguards and alternative job creation will result in overnight worker displacement. The use of AI for mass surveillance will strip us of privacy and expose us to discrimination and coercion. And our youth will suffer as they try to navigate a world where privacy, opportunity, and agency are nearly impossible to attain. 

Vichal recognizes the dire need to meet new challenges with new bodies and agencies dedicated to finding solutions that effectively combat threats to the environment, economy, and society. This begins with creating a Federal Artificial Intelligence Commission.

The following paper lays out Vichal’s AI agenda in three parts, what he will resist, what he will reclaim and what he will reimagine. 

        A. Federal Artificial Intelligence Commission

Radio reshaped American life in the 1920s, with consumers buying radios and stations opening across the country. In response, the Federal Government created the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). After the stock market crashed and the catastrophic impacts of unchecked financial markets became reality, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The government has acted when new technologies that transform our lives have emerged, and Artificial Intelligence requires the same response. 

Vichal will fight for the immediate creation of the Federal Artificial Intelligence Commission (FAIC) to act as the central authority on AI. The FAIC will be equipped with real authority, not just as an advisor. Some uses of AI are too dangerous to permit at all, like federal facial recognition and surveillance, and the FAIC will draw those lines. The FAIC will focus on: 

• Licensing & Auditing. AI deployment in high-risk areas, including hiring, housing, lending, and healthcare, would need to be reviewed and approved before utilization, akin to the FDA's review of drug safety. 

• Transparency on AI Developers. Companies would be required to disclose what data they use to train models, how much energy and water their systems use, and to self-report identified risks.  

• Investigation and Penalties. The FAIC will be vested with the authority to issue fines, require fixes, and refer violations of Federal AI rules to the DOJ. 

• National Standards. Setting standards for data center siting, including environmental reviews, protections for local consumers, and systemic community input. 

• Coordination. AI intersects across many industries, and the FAIC will be tasked with coordinating across Federal agencies to ensure consistent application and enforcement of regulations. 

The FAIC will be an institution that is built with the people who are impacted by AI, all of us. The structure includes industry, government, labor unions, civil rights groups, educators, and community members. This accurately reflects the far-ranging impacts the technology offers and ensures that AI can be utilized for our communities. 

        B. Data Centers

The construction of large-scale data centers in New York threatens to overwhelm our already struggling, outdated grid system and water treatment infrastructure while driving up consumer costs through higher utility rates. This issue must be addressed with immediate action to protect working-class NY-7 communities from the growing affordability crisis. Affordability is only the tip of the iceberg in this dire situation, as these centers also pose a grave threat to our local environments and public health. 

To secure affordable and sustainable futures, it is paramount that NY-7 constituents have a stake in the AI economy and a voice in the decision-making process that will affect them for generations to come. 

Resist

• Utility bill hikes: Working families shouldn’t pay for AI bills.  

• Environmental degradation: Grid strain and water depletion are damaging communities. 

• Public subsidies: Developers must make binding commitments to the neighborhoods where they build. 

Reclaim

• Environmental sustainability: Today’s infrastructure impacts our neighborhoods for generations. We are responsible for making responsible choices that weigh the long-term impacts of environmental damage. 

• Local Control. Communities deserve a say in what gets built in their neighborhoods. 

Reimagine

• A 3-year Data Center Moratorium. Vichal supports the New York State Data Center Moratorium Act and will push for similar federal protections. This pause ensures new infrastructure serves the best interests of local communities and the environment. 

• Local power grid and water treatment upgrades. AI infrastructure development must be coupled with resources to upgrade the systems it depends on. This includes power grids and water treatment in local communities. 

• AI dividends. The wealth these data centers generate should not only flow to tech companies. Shares should return to the communities that host them through an AI dividend paid directly to residents.

• Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs): Data centers will be required to enter into a binding agreement with local communities to secure commitments to noise limits, water usage transparency, and design standards. 

        C. Worker Displacement

Impending automation represents a potentially catastrophic level of job loss for community members. Every type of worker and profession is seeing their jobs be redesigned around AI systems in real time. Part of having a stake in the booming AI economy requires safeguards to secure the future employment of those whose occupations are at risk of automation in the coming years. 

Providing aid in the form of job training and transitional preparation that does not minimize the value of previous experience and schooling will help to mitigate AI-driven job loss. Other ways to protect workers include incentivizing and regulating local hiring of real people and providing financial assistance to maintain workers' financial stability during transitional periods. 

Resist

• Automation without alternatives. Corporations cannot reap cost savings alone.

• Devaluation of education, experience, and training. Human labor has worth.  

• Automation to cut wages and break unions. AI should not be a union-busting tool.

Reclaim

• The right to work where you live. Strong labor markets define our communities, and the people of NY-7 should be able to find good jobs in their own neighborhoods. 

• Rewards for commitment, dedication, and time. Human labor has value that cannot be replicated. The dignity of work must be protected. 

Reimagine

• Universal Basic Income (UBI) or Transitional Income. AI dividends should ensure displaced workers have a real safety net. The wealth AI creates should support the people put out of work.  

• Free Retraining at CUNY and local trade schools. Federal funding to partner with CUNY and local trade schools to train residents for high-paying infrastructure and tech jobs. 

• Local Hiring Incentives & Penalties. Employers that hire locally receive tax incentives for supporting communities. Companies that replace real workers with automated services face automatic penalties. 

• Right to Bargain. Federal law must guarantee workers the opportunity to bargain over AI use in their workplaces. Writers and actors already won this fight in 2023, and it should be available to every worker. 

        D. Privacy and Surveillance

Together, Silicon Valley and the Trump White House have pushed our contemporary social, political, and economic landscape into one of techno-authoritarian chaos. ICE is buying data to track communities, police departments are using facial recognition on protestors, landlords are screening tenants and employers are making hiring decisions. Each of these has potentially catastrophic discriminatory outcomes. 

At present, the United States is moving away from being a liberal democracy. The deployment of advanced information technologies for monitoring, predicting, and controlling behavior has stripped our citizens of the rights to self-determination, privacy, and security. To combat this potential breach of constitutional rights, we must provide data security that prohibits nonconsensual collection and sale and provides full transparency to consumers regarding how their information is stored and used. The US needs a comprehensive federal privacy law. 

Resist

• Collection and sales of personal data: Data can’t be sold without consent. 

• Mass surveillance. Location data can’t be bought from commercial brokers.  

• Facial Recognition and Biometrics. Federal systems are deploying these technologies against protestors and immigrant communities.

• Weapons automation. Algorithms should never decide the use of weapons. 

• AI Discrimination. Algorithms are making hiring, firing, lending, and housing decisions that lead to discriminatory outcomes.

Reclaim

• Control over your own data. Your data is yours, and you have the right to know what is being collected and how it is being used. 

• Due Process. When algorithms are being used for hiring, leasing, loans, and your liberty, you have the right to know why, how, and a path to challenge it.

• Distinguishing real from fake. Media content must be distinguished between real and manipulated content. And hosting platforms must be responsible for those determinations. This matters in our elections, where AI-generated fakes of candidates and officials can deceive voters and undermine democracy. 

Reimagine

• Federal Privacy Law. An updated privacy law to reflect a dramatically shifting landscape. This includes the right to access and delete data, real opt-in consent, and penalties for violations. 

• Stop AI from denying care. Insurers and hospitals are using AI to deny claims and ration treatment, often with no human reviewing the decision. Federal law should require that a qualified person, not an algorithm, makes the final call on any denial of care, and that patients have a clear right to appeal.

• Ban government purchase of location data. ICE, CBP, DHS, FBI, and other federal agencies should not be able to buy data. This is merely a way of bypassing the Fourth Amendment’s protections against warrantless searches.

• Ban federal facial recognition. Building on the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, the federal government should be prohibited from using facial recognition in law enforcement and immigration. 

• Federal Deepfake Legislation. Building on the NO FAKES Act and the DEFIANCE Act, federal law must protect people from having their voice and likeness used without consent and require clear labeling of AI-generated content. Platforms must have real penalties for failing to flag and remove non-consensual deepfakes. 

• Protect elections from AI deception. Federal law should require clear disclosure of AI-generated content in political ads and campaign communications, and impose real penalties for deepfakes designed to deceive voters about a candidate or suppress the vote. 

​

        E. Protecting our Children

NY-7’s children and students are growing up in unprecedented times. AI has infiltrated all aspects of life, both in the classroom and at home. We have to protect them on two fronts: how they learn and how AI can be used to harm them.  

Research from MIT’s Media Lab suggests that heavy reliance on Large Language Models (LLMs) may weaken critical thinking and engagement during learning. To protect students from the long-term effects of cognitive offloading, AI should be positioned as a tutor, rather than a substitute for doing. Alongside potential for cognitive decline, we have seen AI linked to a proliferation of child sexual abuse materials, or CSAM. Yet the investigators who once specialized in protecting children from exploitation have been pulled off their cases. Under the Trump administration, the federal investigators responsible for tracking CSAM and child trafficking were reassigned to carry out mass deportations. Now cases are going unsolved, and predators can go free. 

Resist

• Cognitive offloading. Children shouldn’t hand over thinking to chatbots. 

• Proliferation of AI-generated deepfakes and child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). Generative AI is producing material at a scale far greater than enforcement can handle. 

• Resource Diversion. Investigators should be focused on predators, not deportations.

Reclaim

• Learning. Schools that are centered on building students' cognitive capacity, with teachers in charge of AI use. 

• Safety and security of our youth. Protecting communities is one of the government's most fundamental responsibilities, and our kids need that now. Federal resources must reflect and prioritize these needs. 

Reimagine

• Learning not reliant on AI. Schools can return to places where teachers can support children's learning. This includes process-based assessments where students must show their work, in-class debates, and creative applications necessitating higher-order thinking, and teaching students how to fact-check AI to combat biases and hallucinations. 

• Protect child-exploitation investigations. Federal law should guarantee that the people and units investigating CSAM and child trafficking cannot be reassigned to immigration enforcement, no matter the administration. Protecting children cannot be sacrificed for a deportation agenda.  

• Penalties for AI-generated CSAM and deepfakes abuse. Using the TAKE IT DOWN Act as a floor, and the DEFIANCE Act, federal law must enact serious penalties for making and distributing this content. These include civil and criminal penalties. 

• Accountability. Age verification and parental consent are mandatory for AI products. Platforms have a responsibility to uphold these fundamental requirements and face real penalties for violations. 

Each of these areas demands thorough and consistent oversight, which can only be achieved through the urgent establishment of the FAIC. Vichal will also cosponsor and fight for a meaningful privacy law to protect all Americans. He will push for the wealth of AI to be shared with workers and the communities it transforms. And he will ensure that children are protected from harm caused by AI.  

These are urgent times requiring immediate action. We need representatives in Congress who are willing to actually put in the work. That is what Vichal has done throughout his career and what he will do for all of our communities.