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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tong Galaxy on public engagement with ballot measures and preparing for future crises
0:30:41
·
3 min
Tong Galaxy, a member of the public, expresses appreciation for the commission's work and preliminary report. He states his curiosity about how to generate public understanding and awareness of ballot measures, suggesting the use of technology like Instagram and LLMs.
Galaxy emphasizes the increasing potential for crises like climate change and AI's impact on the labor market, arguing against waiting for reforms. He proposes the commission consider establishing an agency for strategic foresight and crisis management and creating a citywide data and software systems inventory for every agency to enable quick decision-making during future crises.
Tong Galaxy
0:30:41
Hi, Sharon.
0:30:42
Thank you so much.
0:30:44
So first of all, really appreciate the commission's work.
0:30:46
I thought the preliminary report, the intro letter, Alec, beautifully written.
0:30:50
I was moved.
0:30:51
Thank you for writing it.
0:30:52
Thank you for all your work on contributing this.
0:30:53
I have nothing new to add to the the open primary stuff, the housing stuff.
0:30:59
I'm sure you guys are gonna figure out what is potentially political feasible as well as the right way forward.
0:31:06
I just wanna put it out in the public record that I am I am I'm I am someone who is curious about how can we solve the problem of getting the of developing political will.
0:31:20
How can we how can we generate public public understanding and awareness of whatever ballot measures y'all promote in that?
0:31:26
How can we use technology?
0:31:28
How can we use techno Instagram, LLMs?
0:31:31
How can we make the public actually understand it when it comes up to the ballot initiative?
0:31:34
If anyone's out there is curious on how you actually get the electorate to understand the problem to vote for it, please reach out to me.
0:31:40
My name is Tom Galaxy.
0:31:41
I'm pretty easy to find online.
0:31:43
The thing that I wanted to talk about today is it seems like what's possible politically, the window seems larger than ever, and the window of change seems larger than ever.
0:31:55
It seems like the potential for crisis, we can all imagine back to the start of March '20 '20 03/13/2020, right before New York City declared the lockdown.
0:32:06
We can all imagine how unprepared we are for the massive changes to day to day life we would experience.
0:32:12
I think we can all agree that the crises of climate change, of AI, wiping out massive sections of the labor market and labor force of other crises, I think we can all agree that the amount of crises and potential shocks to the systems that we all rely on only increase, not decrease.
0:32:33
And the capacity for government to solve them needs to increase, not decrease.
0:32:39
And our the ability for government to move nimbly and and with a strong, fast approach needs to increase, not decrease.
0:32:46
So I respectfully disagree with the council member's suggestion that we wait.
0:32:50
I don't think any of these things can wait.
0:32:52
What what I do think is really important, though, is I think it's totally possible in the realm of the next couple of years for something like AI to dramatically change our labor force.
0:33:03
Smart people, people way smarter than me are predicting unemployment numbers in the in the double digits.
0:33:09
There are, so I'd like to propose the council do two things.
0:33:13
One is, establish an agency that is dedicated to strategic foresight and crisis management.
0:33:22
There needs to be someone thinking about these problems to figure out how can we build latent capacity and how can we loosen how can we loosen the knots of institutional inertia.
0:33:33
We're not gonna solve all these problems until the next crisis comes and the electorate wakes up, but how can we develop something that New York City already has thinking about the infrastructure that we need to have in place?
0:33:45
The second measure is to establish a citywide data and software systems inventory for every agency.
0:33:53
Where does all of the information live so that we can make quick decisions when the next COVID when the next COVID hits, when the next crisis comes.
0:34:02
Thank you so much, y'all.
0:34:03
Really appreciate your time and your hard work on the commission.
Sharon Greenberger
0:34:05
Thank you