New York Governor Kathy Hochul thinks AI should be ‘less evil’

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul thinks AI should be ‘less evil’

The governor on 3D-printed guns, AI and data center backlash, and who protects kids online.

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is editor-in-chief of The Verge, host of the Decoder podcast, and co-host of The Vergecast.

Today, I’m talking with New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and I’ll just warn you — this episode moves really fast. It’s an election year, after all, with a shocking amount of tech policy at stake, and Governor Hochul has taken strong positions on almost every major tech issue there is.

For example, Meta just reached a settlement with dozens of states, including New York, which will restrict how teens use platforms like Instagram in very specific ways. Governor Hochul is a strong supporter of those restrictions and more, as you’ll hear. But those come with a cost — widespread age verification means adults will also have to show ID to use the internet, which will essentially make it impossible to be anonymous online.

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So I asked about that, and if these new restrictions amount to Meta conceding in a lawsuit that these kinds of regulations on speech might not pass First Amendment scrutiny if the governor were to try and impose them in a law.

I had similar questions about New York’s restrictions on ghost guns, which prevent 3D printers from printing gun parts. That law is already being challenged — not in courts, but by activists like Cody Wilson, who runs the largest database of 3D-printable gun files and who has started altering those files in a process he calls “Hochulization” in order to show the ban is technically toothless. I asked the governor about this, and, well, you’ll hear her challenge Cody right back.

Oh, but there’s more: We also talked about surveillance and Flock cameras, and, of course, the politics of AI and data centers in an election year. Governor Hochul signed a one-year moratorium on data center construction in July, and I wanted to know what she’s looking for when that expires to make data centers a workable proposition.

We also talked a little about Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City and, of course, her org chart for the state government. This one is a lot, I think you’re going to like it.

Okay: New York Governor Kathy Hochul, here we go.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Governor Kathy Hochul, you are the governor of the state of New York! Welcome to Decoder.

I have so much to talk to you about. We don’t have a ton of time, so we’re going to move fast. Are you up for it?

All right. I want to start with what I call the Decoder questions, lightning round style. I think the operation of your office and state government is really opaque to most people. So I ask everybody this question. How is the governor’s office structured? How did you make decisions about how to structure that office? How did you organize it?

Governor at the top. Then there’s a leadership team, senior leadership team. There’s a secretary to the governor who is the top advisor. It sounds like the person taking notes at meetings, but the secretary of the governor is the most powerful non-elected position in the state. When I first became governor five years ago, I said, “I want the smartest, the best, the brightest people I could surround myself with.” I didn’t know a lot of these individuals, but they were highly recommended from having business experience, government experience, or technological experience. I said, “Bring me the smartest.”

There’s a layer of senior team members. There’s one individual who oversees all the agencies. There are 45 different agencies for everything from the Department of Transportation to the environment to our housing development agency, economic development. It all trickles down to a pretty large bureaucracy. I’m the decision maker, but I take input from a lot of different levels of government before I make a final decision. But I’m a fairly quick decision-maker. Show me the facts and I can make a decision instantaneously.

You took over in a complicated way from your predecessor and then you won reelection. Did you sit down and make an org chart of how you wanted your office to work?

I inherited one in a sense, but also early on I didn’t have a lot of tools. In fact, we had a hurricane in my first week. I didn’t know how to declare a disaster. I hadn’t hired that person yet, the head of emergency services. We were caught off-guard a little bit. The state still functioned, but I knew I needed to do more.

I’m always in search of talent, smart people, and trying to rotate people in. Sometimes I start commissions like the Future Works Commission to bring in experts, not just from my administration but around the country, who understand the displacement of jobs because of AI: who’s most vulnerable, how we deal with that, and how we train people to be able to overcome those obstacles or to embrace AI as a possible career. I’m always finding ways to supplement my team with industry- or issue-specific experts.

This question’s going to sound ridiculous, but I’ve asked a lot of people a variation of this question. Almost no one ever is going to sit down and say, “I need to write a new org chart for the governor’s office of New York.” Did you do that on a whiteboard? Did you open PowerPoint? Was it just you alone with a laptop? What was it actually like?

Can I tell you something I’m embarrassed of, since you phrased it that way? I did it on a legal pad.

Yeah, pen and paper. No, it’s great. Very few people do that. You would be surprised at some of the answers we’ve gotten to questions like that.

I just laid out, “This is what I need, this is the team I need.” Now that was five years ago. I’ve gotten a little better. I’d probably ask Claude or ChatGPT for some recommendations.

Oh boy. We’re going to come to that. Don’t worry about it. You started answering this question, but this is the other Decoder question. How do you make decisions? What’s your framework?

Bring in all the information as quickly as possible, pressure-test it, and then go with my gut.

One of the more unique parts about structure in New York government is the relationship between the state and the city. We’re talking here in person in New York City. Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been pretty aggressive about going after billionaires and tech companies. Most recently the city went after Amazon for its labor practices. Do you think that’s been effective here?

I need to make sure that New York City and the state overall continue to be a place where we support innovation, new jobs. Technology is leading the forefront right now. I’m really proud that we now have been named the number-one job creator for tech jobs in the country, surpassing California, which has always dominated in this space. That says something about our ecosystem and I want to foster that. I want people who have just an idea who can use technology to create something that no one else had ever conceived of and be successful in marketing it. That is what I’m leaning hard into.

The mayor has his own approach, but I think overall we both want New York City to succeed. To me, success also means creating more opportunities for jobs because of the spinoff effect. Five guys in an office right in this building could lead to 500 jobs in a couple of years. Those opportunities help lift people out of their circumstances and achieve what I’m hoping for is more opportunity for more people.

There’s a WeWork just above us. We got to go find those five guys.

I’m asking specifically about the more aggress