New York Mayor Mamdani tells WIRED the AI boom echoes the housing bubble, backs one-year data-center pause

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a WIRED interview published November 3 that he sees echoes of the housing bubble in the artificial intelligence boom; asked whether that bubble could pop, he answered yes, without offering a timeline or an estimate of losses.

File photo: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. (Source: City of New York official website)

Starting from the data-center pause

The interview began with data centers. Mamdani supports a proposed one-year pause on new data-center construction in New York State, but he did not specify what policy should follow it, instead calling for recognition of the costs that come with AI, including energy use.

He argued that limited company disclosure makes it almost impossible for the public to assess the societal cost of a single AI query. He compared the industry's appeal for trust with Facebook's case for self-regulation in 2008, and when asked whether he trusted AI leaders such as Sam Altman, he said no.

A city-level AI agenda

Mamdani's city-level AI agenda also includes a planned ban on generative AI for students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, and limits on chatbot “doom loops,” according to reports on the interview.

In the same interview, Mamdani criticized the surveillance technology used by the owner of Madison Square Garden, calling it indicative of much that is wrong in the country today. TechCrunch reported that Council Member Shahana Hanif has introduced two local bills aimed at banning the collection of biometric data, such as facial recognition, in public places, which Mamdani called an important response to the issue.

The interview lands as New York's data-center debate sits at the centre of midterm-year politics: the governor ordered a pause on some new data-center permit approvals in July, and a bill passed by the state legislature in June would impose a one-year pause on large data centers but still awaits the governor's signature.