7 ms·
NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings
- avaer 3mo agoThere's several other areas that would be good to categorically ban AI usage from: - gambling - dating - hiring - advertising It shouldn't even be controversial that this would be broadly good for society. I say that as an AI maximalist: I fully trust AI with these things. I do not trust the humans using the AI.
- jrflowers 3mo agoYou trust AI with dating?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- mohamedkoubaa 3mo agoMaybe his taste in partners is just that bad
- what 3mo agoThey said to ban AI usage in dating (sites, I assume)?
- pjc50 3mo agoPerhaps we need OP to explain "I fully trust AI with these things", because it is difficult to define trust in this sense. Yes of course the human motivation was always going to be the real "AI threat", and fraud (and a hugely increased spam volume) was always going to be the main route of AI damage to society.
- beambot 3mo agoDoes basic photoshop count as AI usage...? What about changing color balance, dynamic range, etc?
- happytoexplain 3mo agoObviously not, though they may count as misleading image manipulation, and should be similarly regulated. The problem is subjectivity - AI is just a convenient bright line with an easy definition.
- TurdF3rguson 3mo ago> - dating That's called catfishing.
- SecretDreams 3mo agoFor the younger generations, it's just called Tuesday.
- muzani 3mo agoAdvertising would be fine if they checked it. Food advertising has used fake images forever, but it's okay because you know the meatballs don't look like that. You have an idea of what warm fries taste like without the fake heat imagery. 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.
- fendy3002 3mo ago> Food advertising has used fake images forever, but it's okay because you know the meatballs don't look like that. 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
- nonethewiser 3mo agoHow does this work? Seems more like a law but cities dont have legislatures. Or … ?
- phyzome 3mo agoCities in the US can pass laws. They're called local ordinances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_ordinance#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_ordinance#United_States
- nonethewiser 3mo agoAnd the mayor just writes them?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Mezzie 3mo agoIt depends on the municipality. 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.
- bryanrasmussen 3mo agowell, reading the article Mamdani is cracking down on "deceptive landlord practices" thus it means his administration will apply deceptive landlord practice laws to use of AI images in advertising apartments. At some point if somebody wants to fight the issue they can take it to court. 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.
- cj 3mo agoI'm assuming "AI images" means realtors using AI to stage empty rooms with furniture. 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.
- pinnola 3mo agoI just moved into a new apartment and tried using AI for layout inspiration. Every single attempt expanded the room, shrunk furniture, and even changed where walls were. Landlords should not be using tools to stage units, it's going to lead to false expectations on the size of apartments.
- cj 3mo agoThe listings I saw with AI staging usually alternated photos, 1 photo unstaged, the next photo staged. Which meant you could toggle between the staged and unstaged photo. I didn’t notice any warping or distortion.
- dofm 3mo agoYeah. With CAD models, every single trick I have tried to make photo mock-ups with an AI image-to-image conversion, whether using a line art or canny edge detector or just a shaded source object, has seen the AI ultimately ignore the cues in some generations, no matter what I do, and I would expect it to work a lot better with room photography.
- duskwuff 3mo agoThere are software tools made specifically for staging (and de-staging!) real estate photos. I don't know if they're using off-the-shelf image models or not, but they have capabilities like restricting changes to specific regions of the image which aren't available in services like ChatGPT. (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.)
- plants 3mo agoThis is awesome! StreetEasy is how many New Yorkers find apartments. In the past few years, it has been flooded with AI-staged apartments. The AI stagings warp the room to fit furniture that would 100% certainly not fit there. It’s deceptive, and I’m glad it at least requires disclosure now (although I wish it were fully banned)
- evolve2k 3mo agoDuring the press conference he finished with a light joke that was something like “after all it’s meant to be Street Easy not Street Hard”. I assumed that was an app, your post unintentionally closed the loop for me! Agree AI modified listing make no sense to allow; regulation here is making up for platform failure.
- eloisius 3mo agoApartment hunting is an unpleasant chore I haven’t had to do since 2022. It hadn’t even occurred to me that AI slop would be the norm. I really have lived to see man-made horrors beyond my comprehension.
- gorgoiler 3mo agoI tried searching for Flatbush on streeteasy.com and typing “Fla” into the neighborhood typeahead gave me: Chelsea [blank] Flatiron Murray Hill Flatbush Delete the three letters and search for “Bush”: Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Murray Hill Street Hard indeed.
- Eridrus 3mo agoIt's super annoying, but this is a total nothing burger because he doesn't actually have any power to do anything here. This has also been a problem long before AI with "virtually staged" apartments.
- kennywinker 3mo ago> he doesn't actually have any power to do anything here. Landlords in nyc are doing business in nyc, which means the city can regulate them, does it not?
- jckrichabdkejdb 3mo ago[dead]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- sssilver 3mo agoIsn't literally every photograph taken with a modern iPhone technically an "AI-generated / AI-edited image"?
- outofpaper 3mo agoYep. Most phones are doing computational photography mining images creating things that never where quite there.
- Ar-Curunir 3mo agoYes clearly that is what is meant here.
- mingus88 3mo agono, the photos you take with the lenses on your phone are not AI generated. They are generated from the sensors on your phone. 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
- CamperBob2 3mo agoIt's not as simple a question as you make it sound: https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-galaxy-cameras-combine-super-resolution-technologies-with-ai-to-produce-high-quality-images-of-the-moon/ https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-galaxy...
- culi 3mo agoiPhones use a variety of AI (though not LLM) techniques every time you take a photo. For example they use semantic segmentation where they recognize different aspects of a photo (faces, skies, skin tones, etc) and process them differently
- 3mo ago
- DangitBobby 3mo agoHN title is missing the operative word "secretly". The real title: > 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.
- wmf 3mo agoThat kind of regulation has failed over and over. The obvious outcome is that every listing will have misleading AI "photos".
- estearum 3mo agoWhat? 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.
- wmf 3mo agoEvery photo will be AI-enhanced and correctly labeled as such. Just like every Web site has a cookie warning.
- Gigachad 3mo agoAnalysis on steam shows not all games have the AI tag, and games which do sell measurably worse.
- PeterHolzwarth 3mo agoso therefore don't create laws or pass city ordinances? I don't understand your logic.
- wmf 3mo agoIf you want a particular outcome, legislate that outcome.
- dofm 3mo agoAI “virtual” staged images are reasonably common on UK property websites now but they have to be labelled, it seems: probably advertising standards rules.
- bjackman 3mo agoRequiring disclosure seems obvious. 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.
- nubg 3mo agoWhy not just put the floor plan with no photos then, or just photos of an empty room with white walls? I can imagine myself how a room _could_ look, what added value does your imagined version add?
- bjackman 3mo agoCoz you want to know what flooring, doors, cupboards, bath, sinks, railings, windows, etc they are putting in. 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.
- maelito 3mo agoPlease pass that law in France too.
- Aboutplants 3mo agoI think this could be something where the middle ground is the best option, this being, just make the rule that any listing with a picture that includes GenAI must also include the original un-AI’d photo right before it. This allows the lister to present the place as it is (important to the renter) and how it could be (important to the lister). I don’t think everything needs to be black and white
- clipsy 3mo agoThat's actually more aggressive than the rule as it exists, which merely requires that AI-modified listing photos be labeled as such.
- NonHyloMorph 3mo agoHopefully that will serve as a virtuous example.
- throw03172019 3mo agoThis is a frustrating trend with real estate agents on their MLS pictures. Sure, they have a disclaimer (most of the time) but at a thumbnail size as the lead image, it’s not possible to see it’s AI. Which leads to clicking on a complete BS listing.
- SoftTalker 3mo agoAt some point I hope we as a society stop trusting anything we see online. It's fake, slop, generated bullshit in most cases and only getting worse.
- Gigachad 3mo agoOr we could have our politicians and laws actually work for us. You should straight up be able to collect a bounty if you visit a property inspection and show the online photos are fake.
- SoftTalker 3mo agoWell we've also decided we don't like enforcing the law. So we've got the worst outcome, theft, fraud, and general lawlessness everywhere and nobody willing to do anything about it. 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.
- pjc50 3mo agoBut this is incredibly bad for commerce when online has already destroyed offline commerce! We should simply not let people do fraud. Some of the oldest laws define weight and measures for this reason.
- inigyou 3mo agoThis will be great for offline commerce. Swinging pendulum, meet the other way.
- 3mo ago
- mupuff1234 3mo agoDoesn't this already fall under consumer protection laws? False advertisement & consumer fraud.
- mequetrefe 3mo ago[flagged]
- nubg 3mo agoWait, this seems to be just about _disclosing_ the use of AI? 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)
- nla 3mo agoFreezes rents but not taxes. Landlords take inventory offline. Studios at $5500. 1 beds at $7500. Yea, he's a real genius of his own mind.
- budududuroiu 3mo ago> Studios at $5500. 1 beds at $7500. 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?
- hdgvhicv 3mo agoSo a landlord would rather not have income from an expensive deprecating asset?
- Waterluvian 3mo agoIsn’t the more thorough solution banning deceptive product advertising? It feels like this is already a whole thing that should already be solved.
- II2II 3mo agoBecause every time something new comes along, people will push boundaries while arguing it is acceptable. In this case, they may argue that it is no different from physically furnishing an apartment, taking some photos, then removing the furniture. At least in terms of representing the product. Clearly using AI is much easier and cheaper than physically furnishing the apartment for a couple of hours. Some may even genuinely believe this, seeing it as more a tool of convenience than something that doesn't always represent physical reality.
- gruez 3mo agoThat doesn't answer the question. If you used photoshop's content-aware fill (introduced over a decade ago) to hide imperfections in your apartment, that would still be deceptive advertising. Moreover it's almost as easy as asking AI to do it, so the "AI makes everything easier" excuse doesn't work either. 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.
- snackbroken 3mo agoIt's not just good PR for politicians to pass "<specific instance> case of already illegal <generic> is explicitly illegal"-laws. Prosecuting a violation of <generic> tends to be a lot harder because in addition to providing evidence for <specific instance> it requires convincing a judge that <generic> even applies to <specific instance> in the first place. You get to short-circuit that ordeal by passing a law that clarifies the intent that yes, <specific instance> is in fact an instance of <generic> without having to go all the way through setting precedent in higher courts.
- mcv 3mo agoWasn't that already implicitly the case? Aren't there laws against deceptive advertising? 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?
- nerevarthelame 3mo agoIt's exactly because there are laws against deceptive advertising that Mamdani can enact theses rules. 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."
- Cyberdog 3mo agoThanks for that clarification. I was scouring the article and this comment section for some sort of clarification on how this would be enforced, since nowhere does it say that a new law was being passed or something.
- mcv 3mo agoThis makes sense. So my two questions are the answer to each other. Interesting.
- dismalaf 3mo agoAre protections really this weak in New York? Where I live even using Photoshop for real estate advertisements is illegal, nevermind AI.
- xuhu 3mo agoA real estate photographer described the typical job as taking 15 photos of the same living room while moving a softbox around and then merging the layers in Photoshop. No Photoshop would be like no copy pasting permitted while writing code.
- profsummergig 3mo agoI'm generally a fan of laissez-faire. 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.
- purplecats 3mo agoi love this rule, but then again everything i agree with is 'common sense' to me!
- DivingForGold 3mo agoMamdani will be sued. It's a 1st amendment issue.
- dofm 3mo agoFalse advertising does not have first amendment protection, surely. And requiring potentially misleading AI images to be labelled surely doesn’t infringe.
- benregenspan 3mo agoI am not a lawyer, but this seems unlikely. Federal law prohibits "false advertisement" which is understood to include misleading advertisements. Regulators can and do restrict certain types of commercial speech, and this kind of restriction has survived First Amendment challenge.
- horusborus 3mo ago[dead]
- htlemur_bobby 3mo agoLove the guy but let’s try something that doesn’t restrict freedom of the press! We love restricting our enemies, but there are better ways. I propose banning rent at all!
- saulapremium 3mo ago..freedom of the press?
- fragmede 3mo agoShit, we're still doing photos? Do a video, make a gaussian splat of it, and do virtual walkthroughs. matterport but for cheap.
- kazinator 3mo agoWithout any consequences, it will just go on as before. And he only seems to be calling for disclosure, which isn't worth a damn, and can be put into some nearly unreadable print.
- JackFr 3mo agoWhat’s the point though? To save prospective renters time? 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.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- tmpz22 3mo agoStudents, out of state, and other groups may sign a lease sight unseen. Yeah its dumb but it does happen. Yes there is -some- reasonable assumption of risk, but not to the extent to allow blatant deceptive advertising.
- rapind 3mo agoIt's also a big time waster I would assume, even if you are going to see places, and buries valid listings. Apartment catfishing...
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- nttylock 3mo ago[flagged]
- germandiago 3mo agoI think this is common sense. You have what you have, not an alternative universe.
- r0m4n0 3mo agoFacebook marketplace driving me crazy lately. A lot of people post photos of antiques and other furniture with obvious AI staging. It’s hard to tell what is real and what isn’t. At least there I can just demand the normal photos. I know that isn’t the case with most rentals in NYC because it’s super competitive and already gated in ridiculous ways with brokers and real estate agents.
- icase 3mo agoyou know what they say about stopped clocks
- Gigachad 3mo agoMamdani is pretty much the opposite of a broken clock. Somehow he manages to deliver every single time.
- wesselbindt 3mo agoThey balance the budget?
- Art9681 3mo agoI am a big supporter of AI and use it heavily. I agree with this. It's not about AI at all. It's about a blanket ban to prevent deceit when selling a product or service. It should be depicted as it is. AI just lowers the barrier for deceit (unfortunately), but it's not the only tool that can be used towards that end. Ban all deceitful advertising.
- luckman212 3mo agoThanks, and you can go ahead and ban all the regular advertising too while you're at it.
- infinite_spin 3mo agoI think advertising can be done right. Stack Overflow seems to have gotten it right, so much so that I disabled my adblocker for them. What bites me is when the advertisements are for something toward my caveman brain, like being advertised alcohol products while scrolling through instagram. I'd like the ability to say: "yes tell me about the newest raspberry pi products, but don't keep advertising gambling services".
- throwitaway222 3mo ago[flagged]
- atoav 3mo agoI am all for it, where do I sign? The whole ad world has brought nothing but problems to our world.
- lopis 3mo agoAI should not be allowed in photos of products being sold, period. That's pure false advertising. Disclosing is not enough.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Ozzie_osman 3mo agoI would personally love to see an end to the universally existing bait-and-switch of brokers listing unavailable units just to get you on the phone, then when you contact them, saying "Oh sorry that unit just got rented (or sold), but, I have another one that might suit you"
- mmmmbbbhb 3mo agoLmao, Mayor lives in dream land. Who's going to spend their days enforcing such a ban
- ceejayoz 3mo agohttps://comptroller.nyc.gov/services/for-the-public/nyc-agency-staffing-dashboard/overview-data-dictionary/ https://comptroller.nyc.gov/services/for-the-public/nyc-agen... > 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.
- jerieljan 3mo agoWhile we're at it, this should cover products and food in general too. I hate it when I see a poster that clearly has AI-generated images of food and the actual food you get is nowhere near what they generated. 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.
- woodpanel 3mo agoYou realize that food photography for decades essentially did the same thing? No Burger ever served at McDonalds has ever matched the looks of their advertising, nor is the actual prop-thing that was photographed remotely eatable. There exists an entire form of mastery around this work.
- ceejayoz 3mo agoFood photography is regulated; they have to show the actual product being sold. 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.
- maverickaayush 3mo ago[flagged]
- nekusar 3mo agoWhy is this even a new law? Lying and fraudulent misrepresentation is already illegal. And "AI" is just fraudulent misrepresentation.
- TRiG_Ireland 3mo agoIt seems to be a new crackdown within the terms of the existing law.
- hunmernop 3mo ago[dead]
- TuringNYC 3mo agoTo begin with, they should make it a legal requirement to list Condo vs Coop in listings, not "condo/coop". One is usually easier to get, the other pushes people thru discriminatory hoops that many profiles have no hopes of passing -- but get stuck in the theatre of process and formality (often not knowing the entire process is engineered to exclude them.)
- latentframe 3mo agoThis goes beyond AI its about reducing information asymmetry in one of the largest markets in the economy. The markets work better when buyers and renters can precisely assess what they're paying for. AI just makes mis representation cheaper and more scalable.
- adxl 3mo agoA college economics professor explained nyc rentals to our class and how people found them ending that they were following ambulances to see where people might have died. Shortage of space was his explanation.
- sn9 3mo agoI agree with the goals of the policy but I don't understand how it's enforced. How do you determine if something is enhanced by AI versus just Photoshop or something else? Apart from being physically impossible, I suppose.