New York City could be the first place in the country where consumers are protected from a “doom loop” of AI-powered customer service chatbots, per a rule proposed today by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration.
The rule would require businesses to connect people to a human customer service agent quickly if a chatbot cannot fulfill their requests.
“When corporations force you to fight your way through an endless doom loop of AI-generated responses to speak to another human being, they’re stealing your time, money, and patience,” Mamdani said in a release. “This rule makes clear: Customer service cost-cutting can’t come at New Yorkers’ expense.”
Businesses would have to disclose when customers are talking to AI and offer an “easy off-ramp” to a human representative, with violators subject to fines that would start at $525.
At the helm of Mamdani’s consumer protection efforts are several Biden administration alumni: Samuel Levine, commissioner of the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, previously led the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection under the agency’s then-chair Lina Khan, and Deputy Mayor Julie Su was acting labor secretary during the Biden era.
Khan is also part of Mamdani’s administration, serving as board chair of the city’s Economic Development Board.
— Ashley Gold