As a general rule you probably don't need new laws to penalize behavior you think should be penalized, there are more than enough laws where a good faith interpretation would fit.
It's possible someone might challenge a rule if they think it oversteps the authority granted.
I'm honestly fine with that as long as it's labeled.
Having just done an apartment search a few months ago, AI staged images are surprisingly good quality. It's difficult to detect it as AI when going through a bunch of listings quickly. But yea, I guess it can cause confusion if it sticks a Peloton (or whatever) in a space where it won't actually fit.
Landlords should not be using tools to stage units, it's going to lead to false expectations on the size of apartments.
Which meant you could toggle between the staged and unstaged photo. I didn’t notice any warping or distortion.
(De-staging is a particularly neat trick - if a property still has some of the current tenant's belongings in it, an AI model can remove those items to show what the room would look like empty.)
Agree AI modified listing make no sense to allow; regulation here is making up for platform failure.
This has also been a problem long before AI with "virtually staged" apartments.
Landlords in nyc are doing business in nyc, which means the city can regulate them, does it not?
Have you seen some of these listings? We are talking about retaining walls invented where they can’t exist, work displayed that hasn’t occurred, etc. if you show up to a property and it’s materially different than the picture that got you there, that should be illegal.
If you want to make an argument that “everything is AI now” go for it. But I’m happy to see existing false advertising laws evolve as technology evolves
> Mayor Mamdani Says Landlords Can’t Secretly Use AI Images to Advertise Properties
The article contents align with the real title: you just disclose AI usage when advertising rentals.
Is your claim that every photo will be labeled as AI-modified, or that people won't label AI-modified images? If the latter, just penalize the listing agents. Trivial.
The entire issue is that the platforms are already inundated with misleading, unlabeled AI-modified images.
Just like every Web site has a cookie warning.
Using AI for these pics is also not inherently deceptive though.
I live in an extremely overheated housing market where properties are usually sold/rented long before they actually get completed. I'm fine with landlords using AI in their renders to make claims about how the place will eventually look.
You also see people using AI to put furniture into the image (I assume they are also taking out the furniture that's actually there, belonging to the previous tenant, but doesn't fit their desired aesthetic). Again, nothing _inherently_ deceptive about this.
Main thing is just whether tenants are empowered to back out of the contract if they don't get what they were promised.
Anyone who e.g. uses AI to expand rooms/windows... Jail please.
So realtor websites will get a tiny footer saying "image experience may be enhanced with AI"
(note my skilled use of "may" which actually means "are always 100% of the time"... ugh i hate it so much)
Zillow quotes: "The average rent for all bedrooms and all property types in New York, NY is $3,710."
Where are your figures sourced from?
It feels like this is already a whole thing that should already be solved.
It sounds like an incredibly sensible rule. But is this something a mayor can just declare? Isn't this something aa legislative body has to decide?
NYC's Administrative Code prohibits deceptive trade practices, false advertising, misleading representations made to customers, etc. It gives the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection authority to execute those broad guidelines by enacting specific rules.
So Mamdani and the DCWP are basically saying, "City law gives us the authority to regulate this sort of thing, and because this is clearly in violation, here are the specific rules we're enacting to regulate it."
Where I live even using Photoshop for real estate advertisements is illegal, nevermind AI.
But it's refreshing to see common-sense policies being implemented.
Like another comment posted: platform failures need higher-level (govt. in this case) intervention.
We love restricting our enemies, but there are better ways.
I propose banning rent at all!
And he only seems to be calling for disclosure, which isn't worth a damn, and can be put into some nearly unreadable print.
I’ve lived here for 30+ years, rented for more than 20 and why would anyone ever rent an apartment without seeing it in person?
That being said, IANAL but I imagine the rule is fully legal. The city already mandates a host of things: if the listing markets something as a 3BR, it needs to have 3 rooms bigger than 80 sq feet, each with an exterior window. If they say 3BR and it needs a wall to created the 3rd BR they have to put it up. If it says 2BR convertible 3BR, you might have to pay to have it put up.
I suppose landlords if they think it is very beneficial to use AI to get people to pay more for apartments might fight back, probably free speech or some such thing, some landlords might just do it because they dislike Mamdani.
Anyway I'm not sure if they would need to update much, just issue statement "using AI to create an image that cannot actually happen in reality for an apartment by.. (long winded description follows) is obviously deceptive and falls under current regulations and laws and we will be prosecuting it as such" - this would of course be determined by how things work in NY specifically.
This likely doesn't even require a new law. There is probably an existing law against deceptive advertising in renting. This is just the mayor announcing that he will interpret the existing law to cover AI generated staging images.
I dont care about simulating furniture placement specifically, but most use of AI in advertising that I see today would not be acceptable under that standard.
He can probably get DCWP to engage in the normal rule making process, but at most this is probably going to get some AI disclosure somewhere, which is what we had for "virtually staged" lies.
Existing law doesn't have the authority to ban all AI images as inherently deceptive, and DCWP isn't going to be spending a bunch of time prosecuting individual images.
I agree with Mamdani that these images are often deceptive and misleading and sifting through the bullshit is annoying (and was annoying with virtually staged images too). It's just not going to go anywhere. The energy would be better spent on zoning and building code reform.
It is entirely baffling to me as to why, but NYC is the only major city in the US I've ever lived in where it is genuinely a problem. In all other cities, I had no issues with that, pretty much every single posting online had square footage.
Meanwhile, on StreetEasy (and other platforms listing NYC rental units), looking for apartments is a major pain, because majority have zero square footage info. And then it turns into a pure guessing game that becomes super annoying, because an apartment I might be interested in is listed only as "1 bedroom", but just looking at the pics it is impossible to gauge whether it is 400sqft or 900sqft. Knowing that info would have made it much easier for renters, and I cannot think of a logical reason to not provide that information.
The reason is simple. Omission is deception.
I see this all the time with motorcycle PPE. If something was CE A, AA, or AAA rated, it’d be at the top of the description/specs. When it’s not, I know it’s not so I just move on.
Because it's to an extreme degree a landlord's market and thus none of them have any incentive to do more than the bare minimum?
Even if it was listed everyone would "stretch" things by including closets and the like. The only way it would work is if the city did the measurements and maintained a database...but then you'd have people bribing the inspectors. they already do it over fire code.
Renting an apartment should require at a minimum registration, inspection (fire code - window/egress, detectors, and ideally an extinguisher and fire blanket), proof of insurance, and some sort of bond per unit that the city holds onto and uses for emergency code compliance repairs.
It's a groundbreaking idea but it might work. And who knows, maybe it's an innovation we could apply to other areas of law in case they also ever need to interact with any ambiguity (which hasn't happened yet, of course).
> some type of like... room... maybe call it a "court"... where people could "judge" whether a person fell on the allowable or disallowable end
It's very unlikely to be trivial though because the state typically lacks the resources required to enforce things like this at scale. You'll need to find violators, meet a burden of proof that they violated the law, notify them, give them the right to defend themsleves against the allegation, etc.
They'll almost certainly spend more time and money on the process than is ever collected if this ever happens.
The point of regulation isn't for the state to turn a profit. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that regulations that drive a monetary profit for the state are generally bad because they create a perverse incentive. For example, municipal governments adversely affect traffic flow by lowering speed limits because those lower speed limits generate more ticket revenue.
You could create a private right of action for this, but that is its own bag of worms.
2. The burden of proof/right to defense/notifications etc are all quite a lot easier for licensed entities like real estate brokers – that's kind of the entire point of licensure
Oh yeah, this tiny apartment can definitely fit all this furniture. It’s not all ai generated at 2/3rds the size of any real furniture.
Generative features are all over Photoshop and other image editors. Removing a coffee cup off a table is a pretty small use of AI that nobody would really object to
avaer•4h ago
I say that as an AI maximalist: I fully trust AI with these things. I do not trust the humans using the AI.
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