NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings
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Agree AI modified listing make no sense to allow; regulation here is making up for platform failure.
Chelsea
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Flatiron
Murray Hill
Flatbush
Chelsea
Chelsea
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Murray Hill
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?
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.
Politicians routinely say they will do things they do not have the authority to do, and it's often very important to understanding what will actually happen to have some understanding of what authorities are available to them, or at the very least ask Google/LLMs about it.
Similarly, it's fine for people to have opinions on food, dental hygiene, and the tax code without being a chef, a dentist, and an accountant.
And in my understanding interpreting the law as opposed to just reciting it constitutes legal advice.
If you want something more concrete, I googled it, and in New York, there appears to have been a case New York County Lawyers’ Association v. Dacey, in which Dacey wrote a book "How to Avoid Probate!", and the NYCA accepted a dissent in a lower court, stating in part:
Does the writing, publication, advertising, sale and distribution of "How To Avoid Probate!" constitute the unauthorized practice of law within the meaning of subdivision B of section 750? It cannot be claimed that the publication of a legal text which purports to say what the law is amounts to legal practice. And the mere fact that the principles or rules stated in the text may be accepted by a particular reader as a solution to his problem does not affect this.
"[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions" (Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 270)
you've constructed a false dichotomy here.
the government of a city with ~8 million people is capable of doing multiple things at the same time.
Degrees of alteration matter, pretending ai images are the same as color retouching is dumb.
I keep harping on about the "virtual staging" that real estate agents have been doing for a decade that is equally deceptive and annoying and already gets labeled, and the labels don't actually help because you're still left trying to decipher what is real yourself.
If they wanted to actually do something useful, they'd get together with the legislature and pass a law saying that real estate listings need to come with floor plans that are accurate within X% under the penalty of some sort of fine with a private right of action. But passing laws is hard and faces opposition.
It doesn't really touch the issue of affordable housing so there's not much to cheer for here.
Politician makes a grand statement they do not have the authority to meaningfully act on to get headlines, DCWP issues a weak sauce disclosure rule and the news cycle moves on because this is not actually anybody's priority.
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.
However yes they are a problem.
Personally, I wish we would normalize including exact floor plans with measurements.
(Won’t advertise my app, but you can find many on the iOS App Store).
Would be nice for StreetEasy to have some kind of third party verification about apartment size claims.
https://www.nen.nl/bouw/beheer-en-onderhoud/oppervlaktebepal...
I don’t think it really changes the property value because those interior walls are usually cosmetic and not load bearing. If the bank has to foreclose, the next buyer will be well aware they can strip those walls out for nothing relative to the cost of buying the building.
I’m doubtful it pushes the tax revenue for the same reason, everyone is already evaluating based on what it could be.
Smaller units are probably just not worth the effort to manage. It’s a lot of over head to start auditing old duplexes where the owner has a property or two and isn’t a giant company with a whole compliance department.
A consumer doesn't buy anything from a business "as seen", that is not a thing over here. There are binding rules to protect consumers from malevolent sellers or landlords, and legal obligations you can't subvert by tricking customers into purchasing something different from what was advertised.
Advertised amounts would be off by 20-25%. When you confronted them about it realtors would just give you the real number, I guess most people wouldn't go through the trouble so it was worth trying for them.
It would be truly trivial to then just transform that to calculating square footage, and many states do just that. But not all. It's a problem of motivation, not necessarily ability or cost.
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.
okay let's change that? seems bad
How do you change that, short of building more?
Not measuring correctly, not publishing the measurements, or publishing incorrect measurements outside an error margin gets counted as deception. Offer a simple reporting contact point to citizens to report landlords or offers that violate this regulation without a lawsuit.
This is a very well-trodden path, I think.
I hear you guys like suing eachother in the states, seems like this kind of regulation would suit you just fine!
Improving advertisements to make them accurate, detailed, and directly-comparable is obviously a good thing. But does not change the market in favour of the tenants; the status-quo exists because of a lack of properties. That means no matter how bad the advert(s) tenants have to choose one available. If there were a surplus of properties then it would be a tenant's market.
(I'm in Europe!)
How it works in plenty of other countries…
Those are not good pics. Probably* for the same reason, to hide size and maybe something else.
*Depends on culture and I don't know about NYC. I've seen another landlord's market where quite a few landlords just post one or two useless photos — and even heard advice to pay attention to such postings as they're definitely not prepared by a professional agent.
Now Didi came (99) and Keeta, and they at least allow users to post reviews with pictures.
> requiring disclosure of AI-altered listings
So all the landlords will just disclose it and everyone will continue to be deceived. Just like every other picture on Meta platforms these days says it is AI-edited. That didn't make the feed any better; it's still a feed full of disclosed AI crap.
Why is this mayor so fucking chicken to just BAN AI-altered listings altogether? Have jail time and $1M fines for it. Fines big enough that you would risk losing your property altogether. We need more real leaders.
Job postings must include a salary range? Who the fuck thought of that? Did they even ask a mathematician whether providing the min() and max() would be useful rather than mean(), median(), and std(), which is what the law really should require?
Now how many could even tell you the rough definition of standard deviation, let alone be able to give a value for it? Almost none.
As an applicant for a single opening, it’s not obvious that standard deviation is helpful either.
For normal people, I think that min and max are the two most practical and understandable measures.
You're nitpicking at details. I'm sure you're smart enough to figure out how to write it so that this isn't an issue, but it seems you're more interested in "taking the other side" rather than thinking together about how to increase job compensation transparency.
Here's the problem with minimums: Companies posting ranges of $100K-$900K. Yes, I've seen them.
Here's a hint for everyone else: For small companies and single openings they can just aggregate mean/median/std by job level (E5 average, M1 average), or aggregate horizontally by team (HR average, ops average), whatever. Anything to increase transparency. If you're criticizing the math instead of building on the math, you're clearly against job transparency.
A company listing $100k-$900k per year for a role that’s not commissioned sales is exhibiting malicious compliance and should be dealt with directly as such rather than adding an additional nearly useless measure to somehow help smoke that out or avoid it.
Yes, this is extremely Netflix. The "fix" for this is to mandate that they can no longer post an ad for engineers, but rather they have to post separate ads for each engineering role. Maybe this is better, maybe not. If a person applies to L4, are they allowed to be hired at L3 pay? Will that confuse people?
> For small companies and single openings
levels.fyi chooses not to publish some comp datapoints because there's too little data, which means publishing the data is tantamount to publishing an individual's compensation.
I hear you on the goal, but the details are tough.
> mean(), median(), and std()
play this out a bit, and you'll quickly realize that there are infinite ways to game this. Something like levels.fyi only works because levels are a thing, and they are consistent across a relative handful of companies (most tech workers do not work at those companies).
And even levels.fyi won't publish salary data until there are enough data points at a company to prevent such publication from inadvertently publishing how much an individual person makes. This makes it less useful for (say) a senior looking for a job at a non-tech or small firm.
- gambling
- dating
- hiring
- advertising
I say that as an AI maximalist: I fully trust AI with these things. I do not trust the humans using the AI.
That's called catfishing.
But the dress you get is not the same as the dress in the picture. If the model looked like you, the dress should fit the same, but the AI dresses don't. Same figure, same skin color, same height, and yet the dress looks different.
That's the problem with homes. There's no way a room fits that many things but AI will make it look like it does. There's a distortion where it changes the specification entirely.
It's like showing someone playing Fallout 4 on a MacBook Air. It's a deceptive practice, unlike the cereal boxes showing milk.
Highly disagree. Color retouch or ambience or effects, sure. But changing shape, size, base color and perhaps some other things is deceit. Japan can do this, other countries should able too
It feels like this is already a whole thing that should already be solved.
I think the reason is clear. Politicians love to enact bills for already illegal things, but tailored for the current thing. In this case, it's AI, which there's bipartisan opposition. It makes them look responsive to their constituents and requires no political capital, because it's uncontroversial.
AR visualizations where virtual models that are true to real world furniture is much more acceptable.
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."
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)
And in this case, no I don't think a footnote "some photos may contain AI enhancements" at the bottom of the page in a low-contrast color is helpful.
We should simply not let people do fraud. Some of the oldest laws define weight and measures for this reason.
Or even if it's similar, it's still clearly staged to look more appealing than what you should be getting.
Everyone knows deceptive advertising is bad, but somehow those who use AI for advertising turned their brains off on this topic because the images looked cooler than what they'd normally produce with a camera.
They just pay a lot more attention to the presentation; pick the nicest bit of lettuce, the ripest tomato, place everything with care.
Stuff you aren't selling can be props, like Elmer's glue for milk in a cereal ad. It won't fly in a milk ad, though.
How do you determine if something is enhanced by AI versus just Photoshop or something else? Apart from being physically impossible, I suppose.
And he only seems to be calling for disclosure, which isn't worth a damn, and can be put into some nearly unreadable print.
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.
Usually, local laws are enacted by a city council with members elected to represent different areas of a municipality (and potentially some at-large seats). Legislation can come from a number of places: lobbying efforts (for example, there's a current effort for municipalities to ban data center development), citizen groups, specially formed committees (my city just had one to create and propose city charter revisions), or yes, occasionally the council members themselves. Typically, there are open council meetings where citizens can discuss their opinions.
In addition, some rules/regulations/taxes are directly put to a vote of the city/town population, and some regulations can be put in place by administrative departments in a locality. (Similar to things like EPA regulations on the federal level).
The specific implementations vary in accordance to municipal charters and how specific states handle the incorporation of local governments.
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 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.
I think an actual law does have to be passed to enact the part literally banning all AI imagery on a five boroughs basis, as opposed to just penalizing inaccurate AI genned imagery... which afaik is municipality based. Pretty sure the City Council needs to codify that.
Not sure who would be responsible for enforcing it on pretty much every site in the world that isn't just the real estate broker or building management/etc, though. Would places like rent.com be legally responsible?
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’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.
Lying and fraudulent misrepresentation is already illegal. And "AI" is just fraudulent misrepresentation.
> The New York City government employs a workforce of more than 280,000 full-time employees.
You know, I think they'll find a few.
> 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.
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.
Seems empirically false given e.g. the immense investment we make in counter-drug enforcement.
I don't know about the US because the US is weird, but:
* at 30kmph the rate of fatalities in case of a car hitting a pedestrian is basically 0%, at 50kmph I think it's 5% or more
* at 30kmph collisions are much easier to avoid due to the increased reaction time and the decreased braking distance (I don't remember the exact numbers)
* at 30kmph you can hold a conversation at normal speech levels next to a moderately busy road, at 50kmph you will have to shout (and not even notice it due to the high ambient noise)
Etc.
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
If what ends up happening is that every listing has misleading AI photos but they have to disclose it, then also what ends up happening is nobody trusts them anymore. Consumers will know by default to not trust the photos.
In my eyes, thats a win since that's a better outcome than them secretly using AI photos.
Of course in my ideal world it would be outlawed altogether, But even if they were still allowed to use AI photos but were forced to disclose it, that's still a good first step.
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.
I went to view a flat this week, it was a building site. That's still the most important bit coz you get a feel for the size and shape of the space which is what really matters. But I'm glad to have the AI renders too.
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
If you use post editing tools like magic eraser and the new reframe / expand tools then that's a different story and shouldn't be allowed in real estate photography.
Unless you take into account their editing features that allow you to, for example, remove a human from an image
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
We love restricting our enemies, but there are better ways.
I propose banning rent at all!
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?
No housing was lost, same number of people are housed.
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.)
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.