Mind the Tech NY 2024NYC mayor: "Technology has normalized anti-Semitism, it needs to be re-examined"
Mind the Tech NY 2024
NYC mayor: "Technology has normalized anti-Semitism, it needs to be re-examined"
"We must use our skills to change direction. Not just for profit, but for people," NYC mayor Eric Adams said at Calcalist and Bank Leumi’s Mind the Tech conference in New York. "No one can do that better than the people in this room."
NYC mayor Eric Adams
(Elad Gershgoren, Tomerico)
"Technology has normalized anti-Semitism, it needs to be re-examined," said the mayor of New York, Eric Adams, at Calcalist and Bank Leumi's Mind the Tech conference in New York. Adams received a standing ovation from the crowd. "You don't stand for me, I stand for you," said the mayor in response to the crowd's excitement. "I'm still a police officer who responds to the call to serve. This is important to me."
"New York is the Tel Aviv of America, with one of the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel. New York is a melting pot of cultures and ideas. What is special about this city is that if you are a resident of New York you are not American-Jewish, American-African, American-Polish or American-Muslim. This is not what America means. Here you are Israeli - or Jewish-American, African-American. America demands that you not lose your culture. You bring your cultural diversity to this great experiment in human interaction."
"To solve a global problem you need to know the cultures of all our groups, only together we have the ability to solve our global problems. No one understands this better than the variety of startups that work here to solve global problems, not just Israeli or American problems, but global ones. I am a techie. I used to be a programmer. At the beginning of my career in law enforcement, in the early 1980s, New York suffered from severe violence and drug problems. It was a different city than today. I was part of the first team to use computers to investigate crime and move from being reactive to predictive. You are now in that moment, part of the world of technology, who uses technology to deal with important goals, you must use your skills to fight hate. It’s so widespread in our society, we have normalized it. Our children have been hijacked by the technology we use every day.
"We must re-examine the use of technology. It has normalized anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, hatred of LGBT people, African-Americans. We must use our skills to change direction. Not just for profit, but for people. We must examine what the technology is doing. How it affected our interactions. No one can do that better than the people in this room. We must use technology to improve the human race. I know this conference has been delayed because of October 7th. Hate is reaching our awareness today on a global level. From the war in Ukraine to the destruction in West Africa, to the global migration of people. We must reconnect with our human nature, or we will leave a legacy of a divided and torn world."
Adams concluded by saying, "We cannot ignore what is happening in the world, what is happening to our children. This is our problem. As it was my problem when I took the oath to be a police officer in New York. We need to start the process of saving the human race."
Watch his full remarks in the video above.
