New York Governor Kathy Hochul thinks AI should be ‘less evil’
The Verge Nilay Patel
Kathy Hochul says New York should rein in social media, AI, and data centers. Her bet is that tighter rules can protect kids without killing tech growth.
Based on reporting by The Verge, Nilay Patel — read the original for the full story.
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul is making a pretty clear case for a more regulated tech economy. In a fast-moving Decoder interview, she defended the state’s push on teen social media limits, AI guardrails, and even a one-year pause on new data center construction that she signed in July. Her message was simple: tech can grow, but not at the expense of kids, privacy, or public safety.
She framed government as something closer to a problem-solver than a bystander. Hochul said she built her office around senior staff, a secretary to the governor, and agency oversight across 45 state agencies. She also said she likes to gather facts quickly, pressure-test them, and then trust her gut. The org chart, as she described it, started on a legal pad. Very New York, in a way. Very unglamorous, too.
On tech policy, she was blunt. Hochul backed New York’s restrictions on social media for people under 18, including no notifications between midnight and 6:00 AM, automatic privacy controls, and limits on addictive algorithms. She also supported restricting AI chatbots for young users and adding disclaimers so they know they’re not talking to a real person. The state, she said, has a responsibility to protect teenagers whose mental health has been battered by the pandemic and by platforms that profit from keeping them hooked.
The Meta settlement was a big part of the conversation, and Hochul didn’t flinch at the First Amendment criticism. She said New York already has laws that are more restrictive than some of what Meta agreed to, and argued that a ban on late-night notifications is not the same thing as silencing speech. She cast the issue as a matter of parental concern and child safety, not tech-company grievance.
She also tied that same logic to schools and to New York’s broader pitch for innovation. Hochul said the state is the number-one job creator for tech jobs in the country, ahead of California, and wants to keep it that way. At the same time, she’s betting that rules around phones, social platforms, and AI won’t scare off the industry. Her view is that New York can be both welcoming and strict. That’s the line she’s choosing, anyway.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Hochul’s pitch is basically: grow up, Silicon Valley, and stop acting shocked when governments notice the bill. That’s a better line than the usual mush about “balance,” though it also sounds like the sort of thing every governor says right before the lawyers show up. The real tell is that she’s not anti-tech at all; she just wants tech to behave like a regulated utility with better manners.
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