The office of Mayor Zohran Mamdani has denied allegations that artificial intelligence was used in recent video clips featuring the mayor speaking Mandarin and Bengali. The videos were released to promote the city’s giveaway of 2,000 free Broadway show tickets for high school students.
"And just to be clear this is NOT AI," Mamdani's Press Secretary and Chief Spokesperson Joe Calvello stated on X, formerly Twitter, in response to the Mandarin language video. In the clip, Mamdani addresses the camera for 41 seconds while speaking Mandarin.
While some native Mandarin speakers praised the mayor's pronunciation, others described his delivery as "slow" and "stiff," with some speculating about the use of AI or extensive rehearsal. One commenter noted, "He doesn’t really know Mandarin but seems to have practiced this little speech diligently."
Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and raised in New York, has a history of speaking to constituents in various languages, including Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu, during his campaign. However, his apparent fluency in Mandarin, a language spoken by over 1.1 billion people globally, was not widely showcased until this promotional video.
A spokesperson for Mamdani informed The New York Times that the mayor studied Mandarin at the Bronx High School of Science, graduating in 2010, but had not engaged with the language since then. Comments on the mayor's X post largely commended his diction, though many viewers questioned whether AI assistance or repeated practice was involved.
"His pronunciation is very accurate; it’s just that the rhythm is a bit stiff," one user commented, translated from Chinese. Another added, "That’s already very impressive." Others pointed out minor linguistic errors, such as distinguishing between "I don’t know Mandarin" (meaning to have knowledge of a fact) and "I cannot speak Mandarin." Some online observers expressed skepticism, with comments like, "Everyone eating this up like it’s not AI," and "Not that hard to use AI to fix the fluency."
According to city statistics, Mandarin is the primary language spoken at home by approximately 330,000 New Yorkers. The mayor also released a similar video in Bengali, spoken by around 265 million people worldwide and by roughly 71,000 households in New York City. Most Bengali speakers who commented praised his pronunciation.
Previous allegations regarding AI and language fluency have surfaced. Mamdani faced accusations of faking his Spanish during his campaign last year. Republican State Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz questioned the authenticity of campaign videos showing Mamdani speaking Spanish and commissioned an analysis he claimed found "sufficient indicators of digital alteration." Mamdani's team responded at the time by releasing a blooper reel of his unsuccessful attempts to record the campaign messages.