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#photos#advertising#where#deceptive#furniture#using#every#apartment#laws#room
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Discussion (159 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
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.
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.
Those are not good pics. Probably* for the same reason, to hide size and maybe something else.
*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.
The reason is simple. Omission is deception.
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.
Because it's to an extreme degree a landlord's market and thus none of them have any incentive to do more than the bare minimum?
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.
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.
okay let's change that? seems bad
Agree AI modified listing make no sense to allow; regulation here is making up for platform failure.
This has also been a problem long before AI with "virtually staged" apartments.
Landlords in nyc are doing business in nyc, which means the city can regulate them, does it not?
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.
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.
> Mayor Mamdani Says Landlords Can’t Secretly Use AI Images to Advertise Properties
The article contents align with the real title: you just disclose AI usage when advertising rentals.
If what ends up happening is that every listing has misleading AI photos but they have to disclose it, then also what ends up happening is nobody trusts them anymore. Consumers will know by default to not trust the photos.
In my eyes, thats a win since that's a better outcome than them secretly using AI photos.
Of course in my ideal world it would be outlawed altogether, But even if they were still allowed to use AI photos but were forced to disclose it, that's still a good first step.
Is your claim that every photo will be labeled as AI-modified, or that people won't label AI-modified images? If the latter, just penalize the listing agents. Trivial.
The entire issue is that the platforms are already inundated with misleading, unlabeled AI-modified images.
Just like every Web site has a cookie warning.
It's very unlikely to be trivial though because the state typically lacks the resources required to enforce things like this at scale. You'll need to find violators, meet a burden of proof that they violated the law, notify them, give them the right to defend themsleves against the allegation, etc.
They'll almost certainly spend more time and money on the process than is ever collected if this ever happens.
Generative features are all over Photoshop and other image editors. Removing a coffee cup off a table is a pretty small use of AI that nobody would really object to
I say that as an AI maximalist: I fully trust AI with these things. I do not trust the humans using the AI.
But the dress you get is not the same as the dress in the picture. If the model looked like you, the dress should fit the same, but the AI dresses don't. Same figure, same skin color, same height, and yet the dress looks different.
That's the problem with homes. There's no way a room fits that many things but AI will make it look like it does. There's a distortion where it changes the specification entirely.
It's like showing someone playing Fallout 4 on a MacBook Air. It's a deceptive practice, unlike the cereal boxes showing milk.
That's called catfishing.
It feels like this is already a whole thing that should already be solved.
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.
AR visualizations where virtual models that are true to real world furniture is much more acceptable.
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?
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.
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."
And he only seems to be calling for disclosure, which isn't worth a damn, and can be put into some nearly unreadable print.
But it's refreshing to see common-sense policies being implemented.
Like another comment posted: platform failures need higher-level (govt. in this case) intervention.
So realtor websites will get a tiny footer saying "image experience may be enhanced with AI"
(note my skilled use of "may" which actually means "are always 100% of the time"... ugh i hate it so much)
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?
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.
Where I live even using Photoshop for real estate advertisements is illegal, nevermind AI.
Using AI for these pics is also not inherently deceptive though.
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.
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.
Main thing is just whether tenants are empowered to back out of the contract if they don't get what they were promised.
Anyone who e.g. uses AI to expand rooms/windows... Jail please.
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.
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 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.
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?
It's possible someone might challenge a rule if they think it oversteps the authority granted.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
A number of them through the 50-80s plainly state publics right to truth trumps broadcasters and corporate right to lie
Just a taste of how off their nut the current right wing court is
We love restricting our enemies, but there are better ways.
I propose banning rent at all!
Zillow quotes: "The average rent for all bedrooms and all property types in New York, NY is $3,710."
Where are your figures sourced from?
I'm honestly fine with that as long as it's labeled.
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.
Landlords should not be using tools to stage units, it's going to lead to false expectations on the size of apartments.
(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 remove those items to show what the room would look like empty.)
Which meant you could toggle between the staged and unstaged photo. I didn’t notice any warping or distortion.
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.