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NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

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Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#101

Post by II2II »

Waterluvian wrote: post #62

Isn’t the more thorough solution banning deceptive product advertising? 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.

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#102

Post by [deleted] »

JackFr wrote: post #99

What’s the point though? To save prospective renters time? 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 th…

[deleted]

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#103

Post by filoleg »

plants wrote: post #5

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.

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.

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#104

Post by aravindet »

duskwuff wrote: post #55
giancarlostoro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I like the idea of it, but I could see adding furniture to empty apartment photos. A furnished apartment probably sells better than an empty one.

And photos of a furnished property give a better sense of the size of the space, and what can be done with it, than photos of empty rooms. (So long as the furnishings are sized realistically, of course.)

A floor plan with dimensions does that better. That should be mandatory for listings.

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#105

Post by qingcharles »

beambot wrote: post #20
avaer wrote: post #2

There's several other areas that would be good to categorically ban AI usage from: - gambling - dating - hiring - advertising It shouldn't even be controversial that this would be broadly good for society. I say that as an AI maximalist: I fully trust AI with these things. I do not trust the humans using the AI.

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.

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#106

Post by ElProlactin »

10000truths wrote: post #98
wmf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every photo will be AI-enhanced and correctly labeled as such. Just like every Web site has a cookie warning.

If that ends up happening, then the next step would be for the platform to derank listings that contain AI-enhanced photos, to set the proper incentive. That would be up to the platform to enforce, though.

What incentive does the platform have to do this? Ostensibly, the agents/landlords are the ones who pay, so you're asking the platform to bite the hands that feed it.

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#108

Post by lostmsu »

10000truths wrote: post #98
wmf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every photo will be AI-enhanced and correctly labeled as such. Just like every Web site has a cookie warning.

If that ends up happening, then the next step would be for the platform to derank listings that contain AI-enhanced photos, to set the proper incentive. That would be up to the platform to enforce, though.

If platform cared they would have fixed problems already.

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#109

Post by ElProlactin »

estearum wrote: post #37
wmf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of regulation has failed over and over. The obvious outcome is that every listing will have misleading AI "photos".

What? 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.

> If the latter, just penalize the listing agents. Trivial.

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.

Re: NYC may require landlords and realtors to disclose the use of AI in listings

#110

Post by Eridrus »

kennywinker wrote: post #69
Eridrus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's super annoying, but this is a total nothing burger because he doesn't actually have any power to do anything here. This has also been a problem long before AI with "virtually staged" apartments.

> he doesn't actually have any power to do anything here. 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.

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.

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