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Press release: Assembly candidate calls for legislation allowing users to opt out of AI

New York Assembly candidate Janet Tweed today called for legislation requiring tech companies to allow users to opt out of AI usage. 

“The massive growth of AI data centers is driving up energy prices, straining municipal infrastructure, and threatening our natural resources,” said Tweed, who is also a Delhi village trustee. “This growth is being driven by a small handful of billionaires who have decided we should all be using this technology. But as I’ve talked with people of every political stripe across the district, many people do not need or want AI in their emails, web searches or social media. It’s actually astonishing how united people are about this, across the political spectrum.” 

The New York legislature recently passed legislation enacting a one-year moratorium on the building of new AI data centers, a move that Tweed supports and urges Governor Kathy Hochul to sign. New York and other states have passed a variety of bills aiming to regulate AI usage, but Tweed’s proposal, to the best of her knowledge, is the first in the country that would require tech companies to give users the power to remove AI from their tech experience. 

“Of course AI has some very beneficial uses, especially in medical and scientific research, but there is also a lot of slop and nonsense that adds no value and takes a tremendous amount of energy and clean water to produce,” Tweed said. “People who just want to check their email or search the web should not be forced to deal with AI-generated prompts and results if they don’t want to.”

Ideally, the federal government should enact such legislation nationwide, as data center opposition is widespread and growing across the nation. Since that is unlikely under the current administration, New York state should step forward to protect its citizens' rights to choose whether or not to engage with AI, Tweed said. 

“Such legislation would need to be thoughtfully crafted to ensure fairness and transparency,” she said. “Ideally, we would require that AI prompts would not be generated automatically unless a user specifically opts in and asks to receive those prompts. And the opt-in/opt-out choice needs to be prominent and easily accessible. I don’t want this buried under six layers of settings menus.” 

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Healthcare policy should be led by evidence, not influencers

By: Janet Tweed, Delhi village board member, and candidate for NYS Assembly District 102

Albert Einstein said, "Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs." I’ve been pondering that concept over the past year and a half, as those in our current federal administration who have been entrusted with very important affairs have demonstrated such carelessness with truth, and with human life. 

In the year 2000 – as I was beginning school to become a physical therapist – measles was declared “eliminated” in the United States, thanks in large part to safe, effective vaccines. Sadly, from January 2025 through March of this year, the United States has reported over 3,800 measles cases (93% among unvaccinated or vaccination status unknown patients). Three people have died from this entirely preventable tragedy, including two children. 

Measles is one calamity among many wrought by this administration of salesmen, TV personalities and influencers, who have waged war against truth and against truth’s best defenders, scientists. The Trump administration has now fired the entire independent board that oversees the National Science Foundation. Parents who have been misled by careless influencers are rejecting vitamin K shots for their newborns – leading to an increase in babies dying from spontaneous bleeding in the brain. This dishonesty is harming our economy, too. Business leaders who can no longer trust the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data are reacting cautiously: that loss of certainty caused $20 billion in lost industrial production, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

When I chose to enter the healthcare field, I was driven by the desire to help people, but also by the joy of becoming part of a field that is led by evidence, and continually seeking truth. There are bad actors in any industry, but as a field, scientists and healthcare providers have helped to create a civilization where we can live and stay healthy longer than our ancestors could ever have dreamed. 

Those of us who value truth, and the tremendous benefits that the pursuit of it has brought to our society, must raise our voices in defense of science. This is one of many reasons I’ve stepped forward to run for New York State Assembly (District 102). Our policies – economic, social, healthcare and more – should be led by evidence, not by influencers. State leaders have taken critical steps to protect our communities now, as we continue to push for a return to normalcy and decency at the federal level. 

But we can and must do more. The status quo, especially in our healthcare systems, is not working. While medical treatment guidelines are led by evidence, decisions about whether patients can receive that care are frequently driven by profit motives. If elected, I would co-sponsor the New York Health Act. Similar to Medicare for All, the Health Act would eliminate all for-profit insurance companies and replace them with one insurance agency, operated by New York, with no profit motive. Every other developed country in the world guarantees its citizens universal healthcare, and every one of those countries pays significantly less for healthcare, per capita, than we do in the United States. They also see better health outcomes, as their residents don’t delay or avoid care they can’t afford. Under the New York Health Act, 90% of New Yorkers would pay less for healthcare than they do now, while every New Yorker would enjoy access to medical, dental, vision, mental health, physical therapy and long-term care – with no co-pays or deductibles. Such a dramatic and needed change would take several years to implement, which is why the legislature should establish a commission to study and begin building the infrastructure necessary to enable this evolution. 

There are so many other evidence-based interventions we can take to improve healthcare for our communities, including expanding school-based healthcare for all New York kids, mandating safe staffing ratios to protect patients and providers, and enticing providers to work in underserved communities by offering tuition loan forgiveness. 

The attacks on science and evidence-based policy coming from the current federal administration are causing tremendous harm. But I am hopeful that we can make it through this dark chapter, and not just repair the old systems but reimagine new ones. We owe it to the next generation to try. 


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Community Reflections

I’ve been a proud member of the Rotary for almost 10 years now, and I so appreciate the opportunities Rotary has given me to serve and build my community, whether through volunteering at pancake breakfast fundraisers, hosting an international exchange student, or giving away children’s books at Halloween. Rotary designates February as Peace and Conflict Resolution Month, a value and a commitment that is desperately needed here in the U.S. right now. 


Like many of you, I have watched the behavior of ICE and Homeland Security agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere with horror and sadness. As part of my role on the Delhi village board, I serve on the police committee. I have the utmost respect for police officers who protect and serve our communities in accordance with the law, under the Constitution. ICE is not behaving like a law enforcement agency; they have become a lawless roving gang, terrorizing our communities with anonymity and impunity. A conservative federal judge compiled a record of 96 court orders that ICE has illegally violated, just since Jan.1 of this year. Law enforcement officers must obey the law themselves, or we are not a free country. I joined hundreds of my neighbors in Oneonta last Saturday to lift up those messages, and to stand in solidarity with neighbors who are feeling afraid and betrayed by the violence and injustice of ICE.


February is also Black History Month. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” At the protest, a talented young woman sang “Stand Up,” the song written for the 2019 Harriet Tubman biopic. Tubman’s heroism in rescuing people from slavery, at risk of her own life, was evocative of the heroism we have witnessed from so many people in Minneapolis and elsewhere, who are peacefully resisting unlawful violence against their communities. In the state assembly, I will support legislation that strengthens human rights, builds peace and resolves conflicts, including forbidding law enforcement agents from wearing masks or otherwise hiding their identities – an unamerican practice that a separate conservative federal judge compared to Klan hoods. 


I’m grateful for all of you who are standing up for true peace and justice, in whatever way you are able. 


Finally, I can’t leave this topic without noting that February is also National Cancer Prevention Month, and American Heart Month. If you haven’t yet, please schedule your yearly physical with your primary care provider! The Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare) required insurers to cover this annual visit with no co-pay to encourage all of us to take better care of ourselves. The New York Health Act, which I would co-sponsor in the Assembly, would ensure universal healthcare for all New Yorkers and improve our health outcomes even further. 


We are a people-powered campaign, participating in New York’s public campaign financing program. I will never accept corporate PAC dollars, which means I rely on support from people like you. If you are able to give, your donation will be matched on average 10:1 – when you donate here  $5 becomes $65, and $100 becomes $1150. If you can't spare even $5, please know that I am running for State Assembly to fight for you.  


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Campaign Announcement

As a physical therapist for the past 20 years, my job has been to help people in the midst of very challenging situations. Older folks desperate to get back home after a fall, younger people who need to regain mobility to meet demands of work and family, people who will work as hard as necessary to be able to dance at their child’s wedding. I work with people who are frustrated, in pain, struggling with both physical ailments and, frequently, with the failings of our for-profit healthcare system.


When I worked as a traveling home care physical therapist, I was surprised and dismayed to discover that fully half of my time had to be devoted to filing paperwork for the bureaucratic black hole of our health insurance system. All of that was time that I could have been spending helping patients. I was also surprised to discover the depth of my patients’ other needs, and quickly took on the role of connecting vulnerable seniors with the services they needed to be able to remain in their homes. Many of my patients and neighbors have benefited from programs like SNAP and HEAP – nutrition and heating assistance – both of which have been slashed by the current federal administration. Politicians who have never been in the homes I've been in think that these cuts will save the government money, but they won't. Seniors who we don't support in their homes frequently end up requiring far more extensive, more expensive care in assisted living centers. And cuts to Medicaid and Medicare further endanger those centers that care for our most in-need senior and disabled neighbors. 


I'm running for New York State Assembly District 102 because we desperately need elected leaders who want to serve people, not corporate profits. Did you know that the United States pays more per person for our healthcare system than any other country? We pay twice as much as other wealthy countries. We are also the only developed country in the world that does not guarantee its citizens universal healthcare. This is an economic failing and a moral failing. And it only exists because the current system is designed to benefit profits, not people. 


The problems we face are not inevitable and we can fix them. Even without action by the federal government, there are things we can do here in New York to improve healthcare affordability and accessibility. To name a few: 

  • Because of federal deregulation in the 1980s, hospitals and health insurance companies that had been not-for-profit became for-profit ventures. Not surprisingly, healthcare costs then skyrocketed. Could New York regulate these companies to combat price-gouging and excessive profit-seeking? Could we incentivize non-profit insurance agencies, hospitals, and healthcare groups?

  • Let's expand Medicaid eligibility. I've worked with patients on Medicaid who have to carefully track how many hours they work or turn down raises so they don't go over the extremely low Medicaid income thresholds, because their chronic, expensive health conditions would bankrupt them without Medicaid. We shouldn't be punishing people who want to get ahead by threatening to take away their insurance. Until we can achieve full universal healthcare for all, New York could expand Medicaid eligibility ourselves. 

  • In parts of the 102nd district, we are fortunate to have school-based health clinics that offer services to all students – including well visits, dental check ups, and mental healthcare – free of charge. How could we expand that wonderful service statewide? School facilities already exist, so this would not require massive capital expenditures, but would benefit many, many children. 

  • As we who live in the rural 102nd district know, it is sometimes very difficult to access healthcare, even when we have the means to do so. It is not uncommon for people in our district to travel 2-4 hours to receive specialist care. How can we incentivize healthcare providers to come to our areas? Could New York provide student debt relief to medical professionals who agree to work in rural areas for five years? 


If elected, I would be one of only a handful of state representatives who have a background in healthcare. In order to fix these systems, we need to have people in the room who have worked with these systems and seen firsthand how they need to change. 


I've also served on the Delhi Town Board, and currently I serve on the Delhi village board. In those roles, I've seen similar challenges and opportunities to improve housing affordability, utility fairness and transparency, and more. Whether the topic is unnecessary rate hikes by utility companies, or corporate investors buying up limited housing stock and pricing out would-be homeowners, my promise to you is that I will always serve people before profits. I have never taken a dime from corporate PACs and I never will.


I hope to meet you over the coming year and hear your ideas about how we can strengthen our community and protect all of our neighbors, together. 


Follow me on Instagram (Janet Tweed) or Facebook (Janet Tweed for NYS Assembly 102).