Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at a policy center’s recommendations for ways the city could harness artificial intelligence. We’ll also get details on the wildfire on the border between New York and New Jersey — and the gusting winds that could drive smoke toward New York City.
People are talking about artificial intelligence. The Center for an Urban Future says City Hall should do something about it, by offering city contracts to “high-potential A.I. companies” with the technology “to make New York a more livable city.”
A report by the center says that New York City already has more than 270 start-ups that “are powered by or innovating with” A.I. or machine learning. The city has attracted 20 percent of A.I. venture capital investment, making New York second only to San Francisco, with 40 percent.
But New York appears to lead in job postings: The report said that there were just under 14,500 postings for candidates with A.I.-focused skills in the five boroughs from July 2023 to July 2024, while San Francisco had over 9,000 in the same period.
The report also noted that San Francisco-based Open AI had announced plans for a New York office, adding to “the already-significant presence” of A.I. research teams at the New York outposts of companies like Google and Meta.
Still, said Eli Dvorkin, editorial and policy director at the Center for an Urban Future, “New York City has a major opportunity to solidify its position.” He said that other cities “are nipping at New York’s heels, and the city’s position is not assured.”
The center’s recommendation? “A different economic development playbook than the one the city uses to spur development of other industries,” Dvorkin said. “A.I. builders aren’t necessarily responsive to tax incentives or relocation assistance.”
The center’s report suggested “a procurement competition, where the prize is a multimillion-dollar contract to deploy an A.I.-powered solution.”
That would “give small companies a real shot at selling products and services,” Dvorkin said, adding that an initial contract could be especially meaningful if the A.I. technology fulfilled its promise and the city then renewed the contract.
The report also suggested subsidizing the cost of computing power and luring major A.I.-related events to the city over the next five years. A spokesman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation did not answer my questions on Tuesday when I asked for the agency’s reaction to the report.
The report said the city could concentrate on using A.I. to make streets safer and strengthen social services, and to help with housing affordability and challenges like those described in our Housing Crunch newsletter series.
“A.I. can’t solve the city’s affordable housing crisis,” Dvorkin said, “but A.I.-powered tools can help.” Companies elsewhere are building tools to speed the permitting process, which he said contributes to delays that drive up costs. Other A.I. tools help architects and engineers maximize the available floor area to put as many housing units as possible into different configurations of space. Still other A.I. tools match builders with lenders.
“None of these tools on their own are going to generate the hundreds of thousands of units that New York City needs,” Dvorkin said, “but they’ll help and, in doing so, we could create a climate that will help foster more.”
As for street safety, A.I. could notify the appropriate city agencies when traffic lights go out — or study streets to increase “daylighting,” which involves redesigning intersections and realigning parking spaces to improve visibility. “Often the city only has the capacity to visit specific corridors every couple of years,” Dvorkin said. A.I. could speed the process, he said.
Weather
Expect cooler, breezy and sunny weather today. Temperatures will reach the high 40s. Tonight, expect clear skies and temperatures in the high 30s.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Nov. 28 (Thanksgiving Day).
The latest New York news
No more rat buffets: Under new rules that went into effect on Tuesday, trash from private homes and small apartment buildings must be put out for collection in bins with lids. There will be a brief “warning period” until Jan. 2, when you can be fined $50 for a first offense and more for repeat citations.
Trump renews his bid to overturn his conviction: His lawyers moved to dismiss his Manhattan criminal case, reflecting his expansive view of presidential power. Judge Juan Merchan paused the case for the next week.
Looking ahead to 2025: Unseating Eric Adams as mayor of New York City was a hot topic at a gathering of New York State Democrats, as they reflected on the impact of Donald Trump’s win.
Trump’s choice for the E.P.A.: Lee Zeldin, whom Trump has picked to be the next E.P.A. administrator, knows how to defend the president-elect. Will he defend the environment? The choice caught even some of Zeldin’s closest allies by surprise.
Subway chokehold trial: A Bronx man seen in a video helping Daniel Penny restrain a homeless man on a subway car floor testified that he thought his assistance would mean that Penny would release his chokehold on Jordan Neely.
Affordable housing: Housing in New York City for the average person is unaffordable. Soaring rents make it impossible for the average person to live in the city.
Wind makes a 5,000-acre fire more dangerous
Gusting winds have made a 5,000-acre fire that is burning on the border between New York and New Jersey even more dangerous. Air quality in New York City could again be affected.
The fire was 10 percent contained in New York and 20 percent contained in New Jersey as of Tuesday afternoon, officials said, and the wind could drive smoke south. “The smoke from the fire is pointing right to the city,” Dominic Ramunni, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said.
The Weather Service issued red flag warnings for the city, Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley, as well as northeastern New Jersey and Connecticut. The Weather Service said the warnings signaled that “critical fire weather conditions” were expected or were occurring, given the combination of strong winds, low relative humidity and dry ground.
Under those conditions, the blaze would spread to the southeast, toward Tuxedo, N.Y., where fire officials said that resources were concentrated.
So far, no evacuation orders have been issued and no structures have been damaged, according to New York and New Jersey officials, who are still investigating the case of the fire. In Warwick, about 15 miles west of the fire, 12 homes have been evacuated voluntarily, Jesse Dwyer, the town supervisor, said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a statewide burn ban through the end of the month, prohibiting fires outdoors and discouraging grilling. Mayor Eric Adams banned grills in parks across the city last week after a two-acre blaze broke out in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.
Hochul said that the blaze, known as the Jennings Creek fire, was the largest in New York since 2008, when more than 2,800 acres in Rochester burned. The largest wildfire on record in New York was the Adirondack fire of 1903, which burned 600,000 acres.
A typical wildfire season in New York State burns about 1,400 acres, according to Hochul’s office. This year, that acreage has more than doubled. The current situation has called for helicopters with water drops, drones, bulldozers and hundreds of emergency responders from both states, her office said.
Modest rainfall last weekend dampened fallen leaves that could fuel the fire. But Ramunni said the rain provided only temporary relief. The region probably won’t see rain again until the end of the week, or until early next week.
METROPOLITAN diary
Unusual passenger
Dear Diary:
I can still recall one subway ride I took after moving to New York City from Cape Cod at the age of 23.
I got on an uptown train in Greenwich Village. Seated across from me was a huge, raw roast beef, nicely tied in white butcher’s string and sitting on brown wrapping paper.
Several people avoided sitting next to the beef. I thought someone might say something about it, but everyone who got on the train just glanced at it and then sat down as if it were normal.
I got off at 42nd Street. The roast beef continued on uptown.
— Jan Worthington
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Francis Mateo and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
The post Could a Contest Lure More A.I. Companies Here? appeared first on New York Times.
