Mamdani Calls Federal AI Oversight a 'Complete Abdication'

'Complete abdication of federal law.' That is how New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani described Washington's approach to artificial intelligence on Monday night at Webster Hall in Manhattan, TechCrunch reported.

The event, called The People's AI Assembly and hosted by the AI Now Institute, paired Mamdani with activist and Broad City star Ilana Glazer, who put the questions. TechCrunch describes the two as 'Two of New York's sweethearts.' Mamdani used the stage to argue the technology's rollout is not inevitable and that public officials should hold AI companies accountable.

His quarrel is both with the federal response and with how the debate gets framed. President Trump's Superintelligence Task Force, announced earlier this month, 'largely focuses on allowing powerful AI companies to self-regulate, rather than creating new federal restrictions,' as the piece summarizes the administration's posture. Mamdani put it this way: 'At a national level, when the conversation is about artificial intelligence, it's so often framed in this language of an arms race with China, and any of the humanistic concern, we just push to the side in a language of national competition.'

The mayor pointed to what the city has already done. Last month, he ordered a ban on AI use in elementary and middle schools. Over the summer the administration introduced a rule that would require landlords, brokers, and real estate platforms to clearly disclose when a property's listing photos or videos are made with AI, aimed at protecting New Yorkers from getting 'house-phished.'

'There is this desire to speak about [AI] as if it is infallible, as if it cannot be questioned, as if the only people who can regulate it are the ones who are currently developing it,' Mamdani told the crowd. His closing line was flatter: 'Nothing has to be. There's a creep that comes with this, and there's an intent to overwhelm that leaves people feeling as if there is simply no option.'

Mamdani's speech lands against a steady run on our regulation beat, with 271 tracked stories in the last ninety days alone, from a House Democratic push for an AI select committee to a DHS order stripping DeepSeek from civilian federal IT. The TechCrunch article does not say whether Mamdani endorses any specific pending federal bill by name.