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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

#181
post #157
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…

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.

It's also a big time waster I would assume, even if you are going to see places, and buries valid listings. Apartment catfishing...

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

#182

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.

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.

But this is incredibly bad for commerce when online has already destroyed offline commerce!

We should simply not let people do fraud. Some of the oldest laws define weight and measures for this reason.

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that label does serve a purpose. Plenty of people don't know that there's even such a thing as that.

I strongly disagree. This is just the Politician's Fallacy. I keep harping on about the "virtual staging" that real estate agents have been doing for a decade that is equally deceptive and annoying and already gets labeled, and the labels don't actually help because you're still left trying to decipher what is real yourself. If they wanted to actually do something useful, they'd get together with the legislature and…

It ultimately won't matter because they can show no photo at all and people who are desperate will show up for it.

It doesn't really touch the issue of affordable housing so there's not much to cheer for here.

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

#185

Isn’t the more thorough solution banning deceptive product advertising? It feels like this is already a whole thing that should already be solved.

Yes, but landlords are inherently evil so if you want to keep the slopulism going you gotta hit them first.

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

#186

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.

Thanks, and you can go ahead and ban all the regular advertising too while you're at it.

I think advertising can be done right. Stack Overflow seems to have gotten it right, so much so that I disabled my adblocker for them. What bites me is when the advertisements are for something toward my caveman brain, like being advertised alcohol products while scrolling through instagram. I'd like the ability to say: "yes tell me about the newest raspberry pi products, but don't keep advertising gambling services".

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

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law applies to everyone, so it's reasonable for everyone to try to understand it, not just attorneys. Similarly, it's fine for people to have opinions on food, dental hygiene, and the tax code without being a chef, a dentist, and an accountant.

I thought it was illegal in new york (and probably the rest of the us) to give legal advice if not a lawyer. And in my understanding interpreting the law as opposed to just reciting it constitutes legal advice.

Pot, meet kettle.

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

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot think of a logical reason to not provide that information. 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 in…

> 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? okay let's change that? seems bad

It's a landlord's market because there are not enough properties, if there was a larger supply the tenants would be able to make choices and defacto reject bad options.

How do you change that, short of building more?

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

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law applies to everyone, so it's reasonable for everyone to try to understand it, not just attorneys. Similarly, it's fine for people to have opinions on food, dental hygiene, and the tax code without being a chef, a dentist, and an accountant.

I thought it was illegal in new york (and probably the rest of the us) to give legal advice if not a lawyer. And in my understanding interpreting the law as opposed to just reciting it constitutes legal advice.

No, merely analyzing or discussing the law generally does not constitute the practice of law. If it did, plenty of newspaper articles, law review journals (often written by law students), non-attorney legal aid, and legal pamphlets would be prohibited.

If you want something more concrete, I googled it, and in New York, there appears to have been a case New York County Lawyers’ Association v. Dacey, in which Dacey wrote a book "How to Avoid Probate!", and the NYCA accepted a dissent in a lower court, stating in part:

    Does the writing, publication, advertising, sale and distribution of "How To Avoid Probate!" constitute the unauthorized practice of law within the meaning of subdivision B of section 750? It cannot be claimed that the publication of a legal text which purports to say what the law is amounts to legal practice. And the mere fact that the principles or rules stated in the text may be accepted by a particular reader as a solution to his problem does not affect this.
and later humorously quoting:

    "[I]t is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions" (Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 270)
https://accessiblelaw.org/Disclaimer.html

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

#190
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The normal definition of square footage I've seen typically includes hallways and stairs. (Though often not garages.) Personally, I wish we would normalize including exact floor plans with measurements.

They mean the apartment building hallways and elevators. As in, if you summed the square footage of all the apartments on a floor, you'd get a number greater than the actual dimensions of the floor, because the common areas are counted multiple times.

Could include the size of the pavements fronting the building and the basement with those trash bin also are shared space.
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