Hundreds of Artists Ask NYC Mayor to Ban AI in Schools
Nan Goldin, Molly Crabapple, and Laurie Simmons are among the artists urging Mayor Mamdani to “protect New York City’s creative future.”
Hundreds of New York City artists have joined a campaign to urge New York City schools to implement a two-year “moratorium” on artificial intelligence in the classroom.
In a letter published yesterday by the AI Moratorium Coalition (AIM), nearly 500 artists, writers, and actors asked Mayor Zohran Mamdani to prohibit the use of AI education technology in public schools. Among the missive’s visual artist signatories issuing a plea to “protect New York City’s creative future” are photographer Nan Goldin, illustrator and author Molly Crabapple, and filmmaker Laurie Simmons.
“AI steals the work of artists and writers," Goldin said in an email to Hyperallergic, “and if we allow it to be used on our youngest and most vulnerable children, it will steal their attention and future.”
Using AI technologies in schools would dampen children’s creativity, the missive argues, and introduce numerous privacy and equity concerns into New York City classrooms. The statement comes ahead of a City Council oversight hearing scheduled for Wednesday that will discuss AI and data privacy in schools.
“We’re calling on you to stand up for the children of this city — the natural-born creatives, the innate innovators, tomorrow’s leaders — whose future is being sacrificed only to further enrich the planet’s wealthiest people,” the letter reads, addressing Mayor Mamdani.
Monday’s missive is the latest in an ongoing campaign for an AI moratorium, first launched in August 2025 by education advocacy organizations. Earlier this month, the majority of City Council backed the movement, urging Mamdani and New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels in a letter to stop the Department of Education (NYCDOE) from "rushing in and expanding the use of AI for children as young as in PreK." According to the City Councilmembers, NYCDOE has added "dozens of new AI products" to its centralized learning portal in the last few weeks.
A spokesperson for New York City Public Schools told Hyperallergic in a statement that the system has instituted initial AI "guardrails" as it works to create a "policy to protect our students in partnership with families and communities. More information will be shared at a later date, the spokesperson said.
Kelly Clancy, founder of the advocacy organization Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces (PACES) and member of AIM, told Hyperallergic that the letter was timed to the last week of school before the summer as part of an urgent push for the mayor and chancellor to act during this academic year.
Across the country, educators have adopted AI teaching assistants, including the literacy platform MagicSchool and Khan Academy's Khanmigo. While there isn’t a centralized list of AI programs used by New York public schools, Clancy said, Google Gemini is installed on “most computers,” and the widely used reading platform HMH contains AI features.
“Using AI inhibits the creative abilities of our kids and their prospects of joining NYC's world-renowned, human-based artistic community,” Clancy told Hyperallergic in an email. “AI is trained on the stolen work of artists, and then lies to kids and tells them they are incapable of their own creativity.”
Among the concerned parents to sign Monday’s petition is French-Caribbean sonic and performance artist Sylvain Souklaye, whose daughter will enroll in preschool in Brooklyn this September. Souklaye told Hyperallergic in an email that he signed the letter for his young daughter.
“Creating art in New York while raising my daughter as a foreigner in the capitalist city taught me that there is no learning without failing,” the artist said. “I want my daughter to make mistakes because learning is not about processing data.”
Souklaye has explored AI through his artistic work, including a satirical performance that interrogated the link between generative technology and capitalist consumption. However, he finds AI to be “morally corrupted in a school context,” citing the use of artists' labor without consent or compensation, the harvesting of children's data for third-party interests, and “the staggering environmental cost … paid by the most vulnerable communities so that a classroom can run a chatbot.”
Souklaye, Goldin, and the other signatories voiced concerns that AI education technologies could store and sell student data to third parties. The letter also cited reports of racial bias in educational artificial intelligence tools used by teachers.
"You ran for office on a promise to be the people’s mayor," the artists conclude their letter to Mamdani. “Please protect New York City’s creative future and set an example for school systems across the country.”
