Re: Proposed rule on AI customer service "doom loops" — public comment

Re: Proposed rule on AI customer service "doom loops" — public comment

I write as a disability rights advocate who has followed New York City's October proceedings on artificial intelligence closely. I support this proposed rule, and I support it for a specific reason: it gets the order right. It requires disclosure and a human off-ramp first, rather than banning the technology. Tell the truth about who is talking, keep a living person within reach, and hold the business responsible when the system it chose misleads a customer. That is measurement before punishment, and it is the lightest tool that actually works.

The four elements of the rule each matter on their own:

First, disclosure. A customer who believes they are talking to a person will argue, explain, and trust differently than one who knows they are talking to a machine. Hiding that fact is itself a deception, before anything else goes wrong. Disclosure, and the route to a human, must also be accessible in practice, not only in principle: they have to work with screen readers, TTY, and relay services, not just inside a chat window. A disclosure a customer cannot perceive, or a human route a customer cannot use, is no disclosure and no route at all.

Second, the easy off-ramp to a human representative. This is the heart of the rule. A bot that cannot answer is not a minor inconvenience. For most people a looping bot is annoying. For someone with a speech, hearing, cognitive, or motor disability, it can lock them out completely — no way through, no way around. When a system repeatedly fails to address an inquiry, or answers only with unresponsive, irrelevant, or erroneous information, the customer is not receiving customer service at all, whatever the company advertises. The route to a person must be a single step, not another maze — and it must lead to an actual human being, not a handoff to another bot.

Third, no evading responsibility. If a business offloads its customer service to an automated system, it owns what that system says and does. "The bot said it" cannot become an excuse for unlawful conduct.

Fourth, meaningful assistance where it is advertised. A company that promises help and delivers only the appearance of help is making a false promise, whether the false promise comes from a person or a machine.

Two cautions, offered in the same spirit. Keep enforcement aimed at the practice and the harm, not at the technology itself. Penalties should track real consumer injury — wasted time, prolonged disputes, money lost — and should not drift into a de facto ban on automation, which would punish the tool instead of the misuse. And measure the outcome. The rule should be judged on whether doom loops actually end: resolution rates, time to reach a human, complaints resolved. If the numbers do not improve, the rule should be strengthened; if they do, that is the evidence that disclosure and a human off-ramp were enough.

Finally, I ask DCWP to write three things into the rule's text itself. First, define "human representative" as a live person — the route to a human must not end at another automated system. Second, make the accessibility requirement explicit: disclosure and the route to a human must work with screen readers, TTY, and relay services. Third, the proposal already requires businesses to keep annual aggregate data on resolution, transfers, and repeat contacts; I ask that this data be published, not merely retained. A rule whose results nobody can see is a rule nobody can hold to account.

New York would be among the first cities to try this. Other cities will copy whatever works here. Getting this rule right — truth about who is talking, a human within reach, responsibility where it belongs — is a model worth setting.

Dean Bordode

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Filing notes (not part of the comment):

- Rule substance verified against DCWP's own release, Oct 20, 2026: https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/news/072-26/mamdani-administration-proposes-ban-ai-customer-service-doom-loops

- Filing channel and deadline confirmed on the city's own pages (checked Oct 26): DCWP hearings page lists the hearing November 19, 2026, 11:00 a.m., and comments via the NYC Rules website or Rulecomments@dcwp.nyc.gov; DCWP's Oct 20 release gives a 30-day comment window, landing November 19.

- Aggregate-data point (annual aggregate data on resolution, transfers, repeat contacts) corroborated by two detailed secondary readings of the Notice's proposed §5-312 records section, not yet read in the city's rule text itself — checked Oct 26.

- Status: review-only draft. Nothing filed or emailed. Dean files himself.

- Revised Oct 26 at Dean's approval: disability/accessibility points folded in (Charlie AI's suggestion, relayed by Dean) — human-means-human, screen readers/TTY/relay access, disability lockout framing.

- Revised Oct 26 (second revision) at Dean's approval: Charlie's four fixes applied — softened first-city claim, "rule" for "order", disability-rights-advocate opener, specific wording asks (define "human representative" as a live person, explicit accessibility, publish the aggregate data).

- Note: the version Dean posted to Blogger at 21:28 PDT Oct 26 predates the second revision; the filing draft now differs from the blog post.

- Revised Oct 26 (third revision): "locked door" cut (Charlie's style fix, relayed by Dean).