DELHI — New York Assembly candidate Janet Tweed called for legislation requiring tech companies to allow users to opt out of AI usage.
“The massive growth of AI data centers is driving up energy prices, straining municipal infrastructure, and threatening our natural resources,” said Tweed, who is also a Delhi village trustee. “This growth is being driven by a small handful of billionaires who have decided we should all be using this technology. But as I’ve talked with people of every political stripe across the district, many people do not need or want AI in their emails, web searches or social media. It’s actually astonishing how united people are about this, across the political spectrum.”
The New York legislature recently passed legislation enacting a one-year moratorium on the building of new AI data centers, a move that Tweed supports and urges Governor Kathy Hochul to sign. New York and other states have passed a variety of bills aiming to regulate AI usage, but Tweed’s proposal, to the best of her knowledge, is the first in the country that would require tech companies to give users the power to remove AI from their tech experience.
“Of course AI has some very beneficial uses, especially in medical and scientific research, but there is also a lot of slop and nonsense that adds no value and takes a tremendous amount of energy and clean water to produce,” Tweed said. “People who just want to check their email or search the web should not be forced to deal with AI-generated prompts and results if they don’t want to.”
Ideally, the federal government should enact such legislation nationwide, as data center opposition is widespread and growing across the nation. Since that is unlikely under the current administration, New York state should step forward to protect its citizens' rights to choose whether or not to engage with AI, Tweed said.
“Such legislation would need to be thoughtfully crafted to ensure fairness and transparency,” she said. “Ideally, we would require that AI prompts would not be generated automatically unless a user specifically opts in and asks to receive those prompts. And the opt-in/opt-out choice needs to be prominent and easily accessible. I don’t want this buried under six layers of settings menus.”
Tweed is a candidate for New York State Assembly District 102, which encompasses all of Greene and Schoharie counties, and parts of Delaware, Otsego, and Albany counties. She is also a physical therapist at O’Connor Hospital in Delhi. Tweed is one of three Democrats vying to be their party’s nominee – the others are Mary Finneran and Thomas Boomhower. The primary election is June 23, with early voting from June 13-21.
For more information visit janettweed.com.
