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

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.