New York Moves to End AI Support 'Doom Loops'

Anyone who has shouted "representative" at a support line will recognise the problem New York City is trying to fix. On 20 October the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection proposed a rule aimed at what it calls AI customer-service doom loops, the automated systems that keep a caller circling without ever solving anything or reaching a person. The city's announcement sets out the plan.

The proposal has a few moving parts. A business would have to tell customers plainly when they are dealing with an automated system rather than a human. It would have to provide a simple route to a real representative when the bot falls short. And it could not hide behind the software to dodge responsibility when an AI system leads to unlawful conduct. Dangling the promise of help and then repeatedly failing to deliver it would be treated as a deceptive and unconscionable trade practice.

A first for a city

Officials say that if the rule is adopted, New York would be the first municipality in the country able to enforce this kind of protection directly against chatbot-driven service. It builds on the department's recent click-to-cancel rule, which took effect on 1 October and made cancelling a subscription as easy as signing up for one. The throughline is consumer friction created on purpose, whether that is a cancellation maze or a chatbot that will not let go.

For now this is a proposal, not law. New Yorkers have 30 days to comment, and the final wording could shift before anything takes effect. Trade coverage from MLex frames it as an easy off-ramp for people stuck talking to machines. The broader signal is that regulators are no longer treating a chatbot as a neutral convenience. If a company deploys one, it may soon have to own what the bot does.