“About year ago the City of New York tried this kind of thing, with less than spectacular results:”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
About a year ago the City of New York tried this kind of thing (deploying problematic, unreliable AI to the public), with less than spectacular results.
Assessment: Supported Evidence as of
Where and when Gary Marcus wrote it
Marcus on AI, Elon Musk’s terrifying vision for AI, paragraph 19.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment marcus-elon-musks-terrifying-vision-for-09136c-a2
We recorded 9 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2025-02-16. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
Conditions
- about a year ago (qualifier, stated by the speaker)
From the speaker
- About year ago
- the City of New York tried this kind of thing
- with less than spectacular results
Our interpretation
- The context identifies a public government chatbot offering unreliable answers.
- I read the understated criticism as alleging material answer-quality failures, not merely an absence of exceptional performance.
- I interpret 'about year ago' as the 2024 experience with the service, rather than an exact launch anniversary.
Counts as supported if: Records show that New York City operated the public chatbot during 2024 and that it repeatedly supplied materially inaccurate guidance.
Counts as contradicted if: Records establish that no such service operated in the period, or reliable examination refutes the alleged material answer failures.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Supported
The dated evidence matches what the claim committed to, under the criteria frozen before grading.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
The Markup’s March 29, 2024 report documents New York City’s public chatbot operating and repeatedly giving materially incorrect guidance, including answers about housing vouchers and workers’ tips [e1]. These documented failures support the criticism of the city’s 2024 experience [e1].
Limitations
- The documented tests do not establish a representative overall error rate.
- The evidence does not show whether users acted on the incorrect guidance or suffered harm.
- The March 2024 tests do not establish the service’s reliability in later periods.
Evidence (1 item)
Supports the claim: The Markup,
telling businesses to break the law.
Why it matters here: The reporters tested the operating city chatbot and documented incorrect guidance about housing vouchers, cash payments, and workers’ tips. Ten staff members received the same incorrect voucher answer, supporting repeated unreliability.
- Publisher
- The Markup
- Kind of source
- News report
- Describes events of
- Public from
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Marcus on AI, Elon Musk’s terrifying vision for AI
About year ago the City of New York tried this kind of thing, with less than spectacular results:
- Where
- paragraph 19
- Published
- 2025-02-16
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment marcus-elon-musks-terrifying-vision-for-09136c-a2: Current. Outcome: Supported. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment marcus-elon-musks-terrifying-vision-for-09136c-a2.