The Looming AI Crisis
By David Siffert
As a candidate for Assembly, I’ve been doing a lot of door-knocking in the Village, and I’ve noticed a trend: Building entrance systems are increasingly using facial recognition to identify everyone who comes to the door and anyone who enters with them. Obviously, this is creepy, but it’s also harmful. What happens with the data these systems collect? Is it stored securely? If the systems are hacked, can our identities be stolen? Even if the systems are secure, how accurate are they? What about our privacy? Many of us know that our iPhones can be unlocked by close family members, because facial recognition can’t tell us apart. That can pose a major security problem.
But these facial recognition systems are just the tip of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) iceberg. AI is already impacting our lives in myriad ways.
AI is already decimating the labor force, with an almost complete absence of entry-level jobs sending even top-graduates from top-colleges into un- or under-employment. Based on reports from 2025, Artificial Intelligence was explicitly cited as a factor in nearly 55,000 U.S. layoffs. However, analysts and researchers suggest the actual number of jobs displaced by AI is higher — potentially between 200,000 and 300,000 in the U.S. alone — as many companies label AI-driven cuts as general “restructuring.” Job growth in 2025 in the private sector was zero – or possibly less.
Meanwhile, generative AI systems have stolen the intellectual property of countless artists and authors and used it to try to make them obsolete.
But AI isn’t only taking jobs: it’s controlling who gets the ones that are left. If you apply for a job online, an AI system likely screens your resume before any human does, and there is a reason to believe these systems are biased on the basis of race and gender. A 2024 University of Washington study found that resumes processed by ChatGPT frequently penalize applicants who disclose disabilities or include disability-related credentials, reinforcing hiring biases and in some cases violating legal protections.
Our energy rates are going up and NYS is failing to meet its climate goals ─ in large part because of the massive influx of data centers that get bulk purchase rates for energy, effectively subsidized by the rest of us. In 2025, U.S. data centers are estimated to consume approximately 4% to 5% of the country’s total electricity, a 22% increase in one year. This consumption is projected to rise rapidly, potentially reaching 8% to 12% of total U.S. electricity demand by 2030.
Our privacy has been torn to shreds, as our data is harvested, bought, and sold without our consent, massive camera networks are deployed with facial recognition systems, and all of this is used to power platforms like Palantir’s ImmigrationOS for ICE or NYPD’s Domain Awareness System.
Our sources of news and connection online are causing one of the greatest mental health crises in human history. In order to go online to obtain just about any information, we face a barrage of addictive products, misinformation, and fraud.
And we are beginning to face catastrophic risks, with AI systems powering massive hacks, and risking even bigger harms, like helping users develop biological weapons. Meanwhile, the federal government’s policy is to maximize tech companies’ profits at our expense.
AI isn’t without its potential benefits. It is being used in medical sciences for early disease detection and by data scientists to rapidly corelate messy data sets. But without government regulation, these benefits will be overwhelmed by the harms.
The good news is this ─ these problems are not inevitable. There is legislation in Albany that would deal with most of these problems and make New Yorkers much safer as AI evolves. Not only do we know how to solve these problems, but there are solutions that can be implemented by our state legislature tomorrow. However, our state government currently has neither the expertise nor the will to take on the tech industry and make these changes. And the AI industry is targeting politicians who are taking a stand.
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The crisis is already here, but it’s going to get worse. We have seen policymakers allow other crises to spiral out of control: the climate crisis, the housing crisis, the health care crisis. For each of these crises, Albany has shown a level of complacency that New Yorkers should and do find unacceptable.
The housing crisis has already forced countless New Yorkers out of the city or into homelessness, and made about half of the remaining housed New Yorkers rent-burdened. Hospitals are closing and the cost of insurance is skyrocketing. And New Yorkers are dying every year from storms, floods, and excessive heat. If AI continues unregulated, our privacy rights, civil rights, labor rights, environmental rights, and more, are unlikely ever to recover.
And while candidates and elected officials across the city talk every day about the urgency of the housing crisis, the climate crisis, and the health care crisis, we hear next to nothing about the looming AI crisis, making it more dire.
As an academic, I have written bills that would address this looming AI crisis. For years I have asked nicely, and not-so-nicely, for the legislature to take action on them. And I’ve lost my patience. I am running for New York State Assembly in the 66th Assembly District to try to shake Albany from its complacency. We can no longer wait to act on the crises we face, whether it comes from high housing costs, the fossil fuel industry, Donald Trump’s anti-democratic actions, or big tech.
David Siffert is an adjunct professor at NYU Law School, and is a candidate for the NY State Assembly in the 66th Assembly District, which is, essentially, Greenwich Village to First Avenue.
