Nearly two years ago, ChatGPT's AI writing powers set off a firestorm in classrooms. How would teachers be able to determine which assignments were actually authored by the student? A host of AI-powered services answered the call. Today, there are even more services promising to catch AI cheaters. "My hand cramped up so much," my eldest son complained about his AP World History course he took last year, and the requirement to handwrite all papers and tests because of AI concerns.

Can AI be used ethically for school work? It depends upon who you ask -- quite literally. That's because less than two years after ChatGPT was originally released in November 2022, the attitudes towards AI in the classroom still vary widely. High schools have viewed AI as a crutch at best, and at worst as a tool for cheating. But several universities leave generative AI use entirely up to the discretion of the person teaching the course.

New York City will be among the first cities in the US to earnestly tackle black box algorithms, the automated decision-making systems that are rarely made public, but have greater and greater influence over lives. A bill passed by the city council this week orders the creation of a local task force to monitor and assess the effect of these algorithms on the public. Unless Mayor Bill de Blasio vetoes the bill, which he is not expected to, the task force will audit the city's algorithms for disproportionate impacts on different communities and come up with ways to inform the public on the role of automation. In a city of 8 million people, decisions have to be made. In New York City, algorithms factor into nearly every part of municipal life, from school placement for students to deciding which suspects are released or kept in jail until trial.

The New York City Council met early in December to pass a law on algorithmic decision-making transparency that could have real significance for cities and states in the rest of the nation. With the passage of an algorithmic accountability bill, the city gains a task force that will monitor the fairness and validity of algorithms used by municipal agencies. The public is in the dark about AI (artificial intelligence) and how it is deployed and used, said Bronx City Council representative James Vacca. "I strongly believe the public has a right to know when decisions are made using algorithms," said Vacca during the December City Council Technology Committee meeting. New York uses algorithms to determine if a lower bail will be assigned to an indigent defendant, where firehouses are established, student placement for public schools, accessing teacher performance, identifying Medicaid fraud and to determine where crime will happen next.

The end of a politician's time in office often inspires a turn toward the existential, but few causes are as quixotic as the one chosen by James Vacca, who this month hits his three-term limit as a New York City Council member, representing the East Bronx. Vacca's nearly four decades in local government could well be defined by a bill that he introduced in August, and that passed last Monday by a unanimous vote. Once signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio, the legislation will establish a task force to examine the city's "automated decision systems"--the computerized algorithms that guide the allocation of everything from police officers and firehouses to public housing and food stamps--with an eye toward making them fairer and more open to scrutiny. In mid-October, I and some of my colleagues from a group at Cornell Tech that works on algorithmic accountability attended a hearing of the Council's technology committee to offer testimony on the bill. As Vacca, who chairs the committee, declared at the time, "If we're going to be governed by machines and algorithms and data, well, they better be transparent."