This is awesome! StreetEasy is how many New Yorkers find apartments. In the past few years, it has been flooded with AI-staged apartments. The AI stagings warp the room to fit furniture that would 100% certainly not fit there. It’s deceptive, and I’m glad it at least requires disclosure now (although I wish it were fully banned)
Not going to lie, I wish they also added a square footage as a legal requirement too.<p>It is entirely baffling to me as to why, but NYC is the only major city in the US I've ever lived in where it is genuinely a problem. In all other cities, I had no issues with that, pretty much every single posting online had square footage.<p>Meanwhile, on StreetEasy (and other platforms listing NYC rental units), looking for apartments is a major pain, because majority have zero square footage info. And then it turns into a pure guessing game that becomes super annoying, because an apartment I might be interested in is listed only as "1 bedroom", but just looking at the pics it is impossible to gauge whether it is 400sqft or 900sqft. Knowing that info would have made it much easier for renters, and I cannot think of a logical reason to not provide that information.
There is square footage on many NYC listings, but it’s wrong. They often have the square footage of the total area occupied by the apartment, including all the interior walls and columns that can take 20% of the area away.
> just looking at the pics it is impossible to gauge whether it is 400sqft or 900sqft<p>Those are not good pics. Probably* for the same reason, to hide size and maybe something else.<p>*Depends on culture and I don't know about NYC. I've seen another landlord's market where quite a few landlords just post one or two useless photos — and even heard advice to pay attention to such postings as they're definitely not prepared by a professional agent.
> and I cannot think of a logical reason to not provide that information.<p>The reason is simple. Omission is deception.
If it had a “good” square footage, it would be touted front and center. Because it’s not, you know it doesn’t.<p>I see this all the time with motorcycle PPE. If something was CE A, AA, or AAA rated, it’d be at the top of the description/specs. When it’s not, I know it’s not so I just move on.
I wish that e-bike ads had the classification. The bike classes are well-defined AFAIK - it's the class legality that's regional, if any. Right now, they're actively helping riders skirt/evade the laws.
No value is essentially "smaller than you would find acceptable."
> I cannot think of a logical reason to not provide that information.<p>Because it's <i>to an extreme degree</i> a landlord's market and thus none of them have any incentive to do more than the bare minimum?<p>Even if it was listed everyone would "stretch" things by including closets and the like. The only way it would work is if the city did the measurements and maintained a database...but then you'd have people bribing the inspectors. they already do it over fire code.<p>Renting an apartment should require at a minimum registration, inspection (fire code - window/egress, detectors, and ideally an extinguisher and fire blanket), proof of insurance, and some sort of bond per unit that the city holds onto and uses for emergency code compliance repairs.
During the press conference he finished with a light joke that was something like “after all it’s meant to be Street Easy not Street Hard”. I assumed that was an app, your post unintentionally closed the loop for me!<p>Agree AI modified listing make no sense to allow; regulation here is making up for platform failure.
It's super annoying, but this is a total nothing burger because he doesn't actually have any power to do anything here.<p>This has also been a problem long before AI with "virtually staged" apartments.
> he doesn't actually have any power to do anything here.<p>Landlords in nyc are doing business in nyc, which means the city can regulate them, does it not?
The Mayor is not a dictator and can't just make up laws or regulations.<p>He can probably get DCWP to engage in the normal rule making process, but at most this is probably going to get some AI disclosure somewhere, which is what we had for "virtually staged" lies.
Why are you so certain of this? Oh it was a problem before so we should just keep doing nothing even though it will almost certainly become exponentially worse with AI? Love this plan.
I am so certain of this because I was not born yesterday and this is not my first time paying attention to (NYC) politics.<p>Politician makes a grand statement they do not have the authority to meaningfully act on to get headlines, DCWP issues a weak sauce disclosure rule and the news cycle moves on because this is not actually anybody's priority.
HN title is missing the operative word "secretly". The real title:<p>> Mayor Mamdani Says Landlords Can’t Secretly Use AI Images to Advertise Properties<p>The article contents align with the real title: you just disclose AI usage when advertising rentals.
I am a big supporter of AI and use it heavily. I agree with this. It's not about AI at all. It's about a blanket ban to prevent deceit when selling a product or service. It should be depicted as it is. AI just lowers the barrier for deceit (unfortunately), but it's not the only tool that can be used towards that end. Ban all deceitful advertising.
There's several other areas that would be good to categorically ban AI usage from:<p><pre><code> - gambling
- dating
- hiring
- advertising
</code></pre>
It shouldn't even be controversial that this would be broadly good for society.<p>I say that as an AI maximalist: I fully trust AI with these things. I do not trust the humans using the AI.
> - dating<p>That's called catfishing.
You trust AI with dating?
Does basic photoshop count as AI usage...? What about changing color balance, dynamic range, etc?
Most real estate listing using a type of "HDR" exposure stacking due to the difficulty in taking photos of rooms that exposure the interior correctly and also expose the view from the windows in the same photo. It doesn't show things that aren't there, and personally I see it as acceptable, but I could see some law accidentally making it illegal.
Obviously not, though they may count as misleading image manipulation, and should be similarly regulated. The problem is subjectivity - AI is just a convenient bright line with an easy definition.
No but we used to call that “photoshopping an image” for a reason, especially when done to an extreme.
I'm sure soon enough dating apps will get smart and instead of the "you have no matches" they will make some fake AI matches so you have a feeling that something is happening and you have a chance of actually meeting someone.
AI “virtual” staged images are reasonably common on UK property websites now but they have to be labelled, it seems: probably advertising standards rules.
Isn’t the more thorough solution banning deceptive product advertising?<p>It feels like this is already a whole thing that should already be solved.
Because every time something new comes along, people will push boundaries while arguing it is acceptable. In this case, they may argue that it is no different from physically furnishing an apartment, taking some photos, then removing the furniture. At least in terms of representing the product. Clearly using AI is much easier and cheaper than physically furnishing the apartment for a couple of hours. Some may even genuinely believe this, seeing it as more a tool of convenience than something that doesn't always represent physical reality.
That doesn't answer the question. If you used photoshop's content-aware fill (introduced over a decade ago) to hide imperfections in your apartment, that would still be deceptive advertising. Moreover it's almost as easy as asking AI to do it, so the "AI makes everything easier" excuse doesn't work either.<p>I think the reason is clear. Politicians love to enact bills for already illegal things, but tailored for the current thing. In this case, it's AI, which there's bipartisan opposition. It makes them look responsive to their constituents and requires no political capital, because it's uncontroversial.
The whole point of staging furniture is to help visualize and contextualize. Seeing a staged bed, couch, coffee table etc gives you a picture of how large or cramped the room is. AI furniture in contrast isn't limited by physics or reality and does not assist in showing the size of a room. It's only purpose is to deceive the viewer.<p>AR visualizations where virtual models that are true to real world furniture is much more acceptable.
This is a frustrating trend with real estate agents on their MLS pictures. Sure, they have a disclaimer (most of the time) but at a thumbnail size as the lead image, it’s not possible to see it’s AI. Which leads to clicking on a complete BS listing.
Nothing like the bait and switch of a hardwood floor going from pristine in the AI photo to absolutely trash IRL
At some point I hope we as a society stop trusting anything we see online. It's fake, slop, generated bullshit in most cases and only getting worse.
Facebook marketplace driving me crazy lately. A lot of people post photos of antiques and other furniture with obvious AI staging. It’s hard to tell what is real and what isn’t. At least there I can just demand the normal photos. I know that isn’t the case with most rentals in NYC because it’s super competitive and already gated in ridiculous ways with brokers and real estate agents.
Wasn't that already implicitly the case? Aren't there laws against deceptive advertising?<p>It sounds like an incredibly sensible rule. But is this something a mayor can just declare? Isn't this something aa legislative body has to decide?
It's exactly <i>because</i> there are laws against deceptive advertising that Mamdani can enact theses rules.<p>NYC's Administrative Code prohibits deceptive trade practices, false advertising, misleading representations made to customers, etc. It gives the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection authority to execute those broad guidelines by enacting specific rules.<p>So Mamdani and the DCWP are basically saying, "City law gives us the authority to regulate this sort of thing, and because this is clearly in violation, here are the specific rules we're enacting to regulate it."
Without any consequences, it will just go on as before.<p>And he only seems to be calling for disclosure, which isn't worth a damn, and can be put into some nearly unreadable print.
What’s the point though? To save prospective renters time?<p>I’ve lived here for 30+ years, rented for more than 20 and why would anyone ever rent an apartment without seeing it in person?<p>That being said, IANAL but I imagine the rule is fully legal. The city already mandates a host of things: if the listing markets something as a 3BR, it needs to have 3 rooms bigger than 80 sq feet, each with an exterior window. If they say 3BR and it needs a wall to created the 3rd BR they have to put it up. If it says 2BR convertible 3BR, you might have to pay to have it put up.
Students, out of state, and other groups may sign a lease sight unseen. Yeah its dumb but it does happen. Yes there is -some- reasonable assumption of risk, but not to the extent to allow blatant deceptive advertising.
Doesn't this already fall under consumer protection laws? False advertisement & consumer fraud.
It does. This isn't new laws, it's an application of existing law on this practice.
Consumer protections aren't as fundamental and straightforward in the USA compared to most of the developed world.
I'm generally a fan of laissez-faire.<p>But it's refreshing to see common-sense policies being implemented.<p>Like another comment posted: platform failures need higher-level (govt. in this case) intervention.
Hopefully that will serve as a virtuous example.
you know what they say about stopped clocks
Wait, this seems to be just about _disclosing_ the use of AI?<p>So realtor websites will get a tiny footer saying "image experience may be enhanced with AI"<p>(note my skilled use of "may" which actually means "are always 100% of the time"... ugh i hate it so much)
Please pass that law in France too.
Are protections really this weak in New York?<p>Where I live even using Photoshop for real estate advertisements is illegal, nevermind AI.
Requiring disclosure seems obvious.<p>Using AI for these pics is also not inherently deceptive though.<p>I live in an extremely overheated housing market where properties are usually sold/rented long before they actually get completed. I'm fine with landlords using AI in their renders to make claims about how the place will eventually look.<p>You also see people using AI to put furniture into the image (I assume they are also taking out the furniture that's actually there, belonging to the previous tenant, but doesn't fit their desired aesthetic). Again, nothing _inherently_ deceptive about this.<p>Main thing is just whether tenants are empowered to back out of the contract if they don't get what they were promised.<p>Anyone who e.g. uses AI to expand rooms/windows... Jail please.
Shit, we're still doing photos? Do a video, make a gaussian splat of it, and do virtual walkthroughs. matterport but for cheap.
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How does this work? Seems more like a law but cities dont have legislatures. Or … ?
Cities in the US can pass laws. They're called local ordinances: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_ordinance#United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_ordinance#United_States</a>
It works because they are allowed to by the state, by a process specified by the state. The rules and ordinances of a county or municipality are subordinate to the laws of the state that granted them existence in the first place. There's a lot variety in "by a process specified by the state", which results in different structures: commissions, charters, mayoralties with councils, and more.
Cities have city councils that pass laws.<p>This likely doesn't even require a new law. There is probably an existing law against deceptive advertising in renting. This is just the mayor announcing that he will interpret the existing law to cover AI generated staging images.
well, reading the article Mamdani is cracking down on "deceptive landlord practices" thus it means his administration will apply deceptive landlord practice laws to use of AI images in advertising apartments. At some point if somebody wants to fight the issue they can take it to court.<p>As a general rule you probably don't need new laws to penalize behavior you think should be penalized, there are more than enough laws where a good faith interpretation would fit.
I think it is basically just signaling to the county DA's as to what they ought to consider when seeking out blatant cases of rental fraud; the laws already exist in the deceptive practices code...<p>I think an actual law does have to be passed to enact the part literally banning all AI imagery on a five boroughs basis, as opposed to just penalizing inaccurate AI genned imagery... which afaik is municipality based. Pretty sure the City Council needs to codify that.<p>Not sure who would be responsible for enforcing it on pretty much every site in the world that isn't just the real estate broker or building management/etc, though. Would places like rent.com be legally responsible?
I'm not sure why you're downvoted. Many cities have a housing department and they can write and update regulations and requirements (within the scope of their legislatively-granted authority) that have the force of law. Things get set up this way so legislative bodies don't have to write and vote on every detail of every rule.<p>It's possible someone might challenge a rule if they think it oversteps the authority granted.
yeah me neither, maybe it was using the phrase good faith.<p>I suppose landlords if they think it is very beneficial to use AI to get people to pay more for apartments might fight back, probably free speech or some such thing, some landlords might just do it because they dislike Mamdani.<p>Anyway I'm not sure if they would need to update much, just issue statement "using AI to create an image that cannot actually happen in reality for an apartment by.. (long winded description follows) is obviously deceptive and falls under current regulations and laws and we will be prosecuting it as such" - this would of course be determined by how things work in NY specifically.
Isn't literally every photograph taken with a modern iPhone technically an "AI-generated / AI-edited image"?
Given that this would be the first ever law with any degree of ambiguity ever created, we should create some type of like... room... maybe call it a "court"... where people could "judge" whether a person fell on the allowable or disallowable end of the spectrum<p>It's a groundbreaking idea but it might work. And who knows, maybe it's an innovation we could apply to other areas of law in case they also ever need to interact with any ambiguity (which hasn't happened yet, of course).
no, the photos you take with the lenses on your phone are not AI generated. They are generated from the sensors on your phone.<p>Have you seen some of these listings? We are talking about retaining walls invented where they can’t exist, work displayed that hasn’t occurred, etc. if you show up to a property and it’s materially different than the picture that got you there, that should be illegal.<p>If you want to make an argument that “everything is AI now” go for it. But I’m happy to see existing false advertising laws evolve as technology evolves
iPhones use a variety of AI (though not LLM) techniques every time you take a photo. For example they use semantic segmentation where they recognize different aspects of a photo (faces, skies, skin tones, etc) and process them differently
It's not as simple a question as you make it sound: <a href="https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-galaxy-cameras-combine-super-resolution-technologies-with-ai-to-produce-high-quality-images-of-the-moon/" rel="nofollow">https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/how-galaxy...</a>
If you take a photo of your apartment does your iPhone automatically make it twice the size, add modern renovations, paint the walls and add all new furnishings?
Yep. Most phones are doing computational photography mining images creating things that never where quite there.
Does your iPhone edit the image such that it’s substantially deceptive regarding the quality of the apartment to a reasonable person?
How often would you say you prompt your camera to líe about you in a bid to rent yourself
Yes clearly that is what is meant here.
Mamdani will be sued. It's a 1st amendment issue.
I am not a lawyer, but this seems unlikely. Federal law prohibits "false advertisement" which is understood to include misleading advertisements. Regulators can and do restrict certain types of commercial speech, and this kind of restriction has survived First Amendment challenge.
False advertising does not have first amendment protection, surely. And requiring potentially misleading AI images to be labelled surely doesn’t infringe.
Coincidentally been researching SCOTUS first amendment decisions<p>A number of them through the 50-80s plainly state publics right to truth trumps broadcasters and corporate right to lie<p>Just a taste of how off their nut the current right wing court is
I think this could be something where the middle ground is the best option, this being, just make the rule that any listing with a picture that includes GenAI must also include the original un-AI’d photo right before it. This allows the lister to present the place as it is (important to the renter) and how it could be (important to the lister). I don’t think everything needs to be black and white
Love the guy but let’s try something that doesn’t restrict freedom of the press!<p>We love restricting our enemies, but there are better ways.<p>I propose banning rent at all!
Freezes rents but not taxes.
Landlords take inventory offline.
Studios at $5500.
1 beds at $7500.
Yea, he's a real genius of his own mind.
I'm assuming "AI images" means realtors using AI to stage empty rooms with furniture.<p>I'm honestly fine with that as long as it's labeled.<p>Having just done an apartment search a few months ago, AI staged images are surprisingly good quality. It's difficult to detect it as AI when going through a bunch of listings quickly. But yea, I guess it can cause confusion if it sticks a Peloton (or whatever) in a space where it won't actually fit.
I just moved into a new apartment and tried using AI for layout inspiration. Every single attempt expanded the room, shrunk furniture, and even changed where walls were.<p>Landlords should not be using tools to stage units, it's going to lead to false expectations on the size of apartments.
There are software tools made specifically for staging (and de-staging!) real estate photos. I don't know if they're using off-the-shelf image models or not, but they have capabilities like restricting changes to specific regions of the image which aren't available in services like ChatGPT.<p>(De-staging is a particularly neat trick - if a property still has some of the current tenant's belongings in it, an AI model can <i>remove</i> those items to show what the room would look like empty.)
The listings I saw with AI staging usually alternated photos, 1 photo unstaged, the next photo staged.<p>Which meant you could toggle between the staged and unstaged photo. I didn’t notice any warping or distortion.
Yeah. With CAD models, every single trick I have tried to make photo mock-ups with an AI image-to-image conversion, whether using a line art or canny edge detector or just a shaded source object, has seen the AI ultimately ignore the cues in some generations, no matter what I do, and I would expect it to work a lot better with room photography.
In the 1960s Campbells Soup got in trouble with the FTC for using marbles to raise the ingredients and make the soup look fuller than it was. This was the real standard for deceptive advertising.<p>I dont care about simulating furniture placement specifically, but most use of AI in advertising that I see today would not be acceptable under that standard.
AI images being able to deceive you isn’t justification, if anything it’s the opposite. The staged furniture is there to help you visualise the size of the room. While AI furniture tricks you while not accurately representing the room size and layout.