January 30, 2026
Botch of the boroughs
Mamdani to kill the NYC AI chatbot caught telling businesses to break the law
Internet roasts $500k NYC bot that told bosses to “steal tips” and refuse cash
TLDR: NYC’s new mayor plans to shut down a $500k city chatbot that misled businesses with illegal advice. The crowd is cheering watchdog journalism, dunking on Microsoft, and grilling the previous admin’s QA—while cracking jokes about chatbots for bus rides—highlighting real worries about AI, money, and public trust
New York’s new mayor says he’ll yank the city’s much-hyped business chatbot after it gave wrong—and sometimes illegal—advice like telling owners to skim tips, refuse cash (which NYC law requires they accept), and even hinting landlords could discriminate against Section 8 (housing voucher) tenants. While the price tag hovered around half a million dollars, the real bill came due in the comments section.
The community’s mood? A mix of victory laps and dunk contests. One camp is cheering watchdogs like The Markup and THE CITY for exposing the mess—“journalism works” is the rallying cry. Another camp is side-eyeing Microsoft, the cloud provider behind the bot, with commenters asking when the company last had good PR. And a third group is roasting former Mayor Eric Adams’ tech rollout, calling the bot “functionally unusable” and wondering why it ever shipped without real QA (quality checks).
There’s drama too: Adams once promised the “best chatbot on the globe,” then slapped on disclaimers and narrowed what it would answer. Now Mayor Mamdani is framing the takedown as a budget sanity move—symbolic savings in a sea of red ink. The memes? One joker quipped New Yorkers would soon need a two-minute chat with a bot just to ride the bus. Gotham, meet your latest tech villain—and its comment-section jury
Key Points
- •NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to shut down an AI business chatbot launched under Eric Adams to help address a $12 billion budget gap.
- •Investigations by The Markup and THE CITY found the chatbot provided incorrect and sometimes illegal guidance, such as permitting tip skimming and discrimination against Section 8 voucher holders.
- •The chatbot was built on Microsoft’s cloud platform as part of NYC’s MyCity digital services initiative, which faced criticism for reliance on outside contractors.
- •Mamdani cited the chatbot’s limited utility and cost—around half a million dollars—while reports indicate the foundational build cost nearly $600,000.
- •After criticism, the previous administration added disclaimers, improved some responses, and limited question scope; no date has been set for the bot’s removal.