AI May Determine How Much You Should Pay For Rent In New York

Artificial Intelligence is everywhere now. From our social media feeds to the menus we decide what to order on. It's become ingrained in human culture over the past few years, and there's seemingly no way to stop its growth.

It does come with a dozen moral quandaries, however, and a major one is brewing in New York State.

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AI Rent Pricing

This all starts with a company named RealPage. They had been using their AI to help landlords control rent with sensitive information about nearby clients. The AI would scrape public data and user-inputted information to determine the "objectively correct" price a home or lease should be set at.

Unfortunately for them, New York was not too pleased about this idea, and drafted up a new state law that would make this practice illegal. It was meant to go live on December 15th, 2025, but RealPage has begun to fight back.

A Landmark Lawsuit

Obviously, this law wasn't good for business. So, in a landmark moment, the company plans to sue State Attorney General Letitia James for defying the First Amendment. This creates a massive problem: can the speech of a computer be as free as the speech of a human?

RealPage believes that they're not the problem; laws are. They claim they have no control over whether rent prices increase or decrease, and they're technically right. In practice, however? They've been shown to be at fault for raising rent prices across New York State. Whether this lawsuit actually changes anything is irrelevant, but the decision could change how humans and AI coexist in years to come.