New York governor Kathy Hochul says AI should be less harmful

The latest episode of Decoder opens with a warning: the conversation with New York governor Kathy Hochul is moving quickly. In an election year, a flood of tech-policy proposals is on the table, and Hochul has taken positions on most of the headline issues—from a compromise deal with Meta that would limit teen use of Instagram, to a ban on printing gun parts with three-dimensional printers, to a one-year moratorium on new data-center construction that she signed in July.

When asked how her office is organized, Hochul described a classic pyramid: she sits at the apex, beneath her a senior leadership team, and the governor’s secretary—a role that sounds administrative but is in practice the most powerful unelected position in the state. She entered the governorship five years ago and set out to bring “the smartest, the best, the brightest,” a blend of business, government and technology experience. Forty-five agencies report through her, ranging from transportation and the environment to housing and economic development. She defines herself as a rapid decision-maker: “Show me the facts and I’ll decide immediately.”

The introduction hinted at a clash with Cody Wilson, who runs the world’s largest database of 3D-printed weapon files and has begun altering files in a process he calls “Hochulization” to demonstrate that the ban is toothless. Also on the agenda are surveillance cameras from Flock, data-center politics in an election year, and New York City mayor Eric Adams. If the full interview is released, it will need to reveal how the governor intends to reconcile protecting children online with preserving adult anonymity, and how she will balance the pull of AI infrastructure against local resistance to data-center projects.