Comptroller Levine Warns of Possible AI Disruption to NYC Economy

New York City Comptroller Mark Levine reported that the possible impacts artificial intelligence (AI) could have on New York City’s economy range from boom to bust, providing the first local assessment of how the rapidly advancing technology could profoundly impact jobs, wages, tax revenue, and key industries. He called on the city to boost its rainy-day fund to 16% of tax revenues.  

The five scenarios Levine proposed are based on Moody’s Analytics reports and on original work. The first, with a 35% probability of occurring, is an AI-empowered economy that would boost productivity with limited economic disruption. The remaining scenarios are AI falls flat (25% probability), with the AI investment boom fizzling out; job replacement (20%), where automation displaces workers faster than new jobs emerge; and a productivity boon (15%) with AI driving broad growth, wages and prosperity. The fifth scenario, an AI shockwave (5%), would result in rapid AI disruption and more adverse negative impacts on white-collar jobs.

“There is no city in America more exposed to both the promise and peril of artificial intelligence than New York City,” said Levine. “AI is already having an impact on our economy and we cannot afford to sleepwalk into this new age. The enormous uncertainty that AI presents to our local economy is no excuse to not prepare.”