Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that he has been working with Florida lawmakers on an artificial intelligence bill of rights.
He spoke at a press conference in The Villages and emphasized his opposition to efforts in Congress that would block states from acting on their own to regulate AI.
"And that would basically take away the rights of states to be able to do things to protect the people that are here," DeSantis said.
He said Florida and other states "not only have a right, we have a responsibility to make sure that we're creating sufficient guardrails so that this stuff isn't hurting our kids, our families, our businesses and our senior citizens."
'A single federal standard'
In November, several news outlets reported the Trump administration was considering an executive order to discourage individual states from acting on their own. Speaking at an AI summit in July, President Donald Trump said there has to be "a single federal standard, not 50 different states regulating this industry of the future.
"And some people would say," Trump continued, "'Gee, that's an unpopular thing to say' ... but I want you to be successful. And you can't have one state holding you up. You can't have three or four states holding you up."
Preventing 'an age of darkness and deceit'
DeSantis is proposing his wide-ranging AI bill of rights to address the "obvious dangers" of artificial intelligence.
"You know, it could set off an age of darkness and deceit," he said. "Some will say that it's going to lead to ... curing cancer and all that. I hope so. I think that would be great, but, but human nature is what it is, there's going to be huge temptations to take this in a very bad direction."
DeSantis said he's been working with legislators on the bill -- and that it would have renewed consumer protections against deep fakes and explicit material, especially involving kids, and misuse of personal data.
It would limit AI use for insurance claims, require disclosure of its use in legal filings, and create restrictions -- including local controls -- for the huge, power-guzzling data centers that AI requires.
His proposal has safeguards for children interacting with AI chatbots -- parents could read their chats and set parameters, and companies would have to notify parents if a child exhibited concerning behaviors.
Megan Garcia spoke in support of the proposal. She's a Central Florida woman whose 14-year-old son died by suicide after getting involved with a Character.AI chatbot.
"Last week was Thanksgiving," she said, "but we weren't celebrating because there was an empty chair at our Thanksgiving table. Our beautiful child is gone, and it's too late for him, but it's not too late to protect millions of other children in our state."
Details of the proposed legislation
In a news release following the press conference, the Governor's Office spelled out what DeSantis' proposed AI bill of rights would include. It would:
- Renew protections against deep fakes and explicit material, especially involving children.
- Prohibit government agencies from using Chinese-created AI tools.
- Prohibit AI from using someone's name, image or likeness without consent.
- Require a notice to consumers when they're interacting with AI.
- Prohibit "licensed" therapy or mental health counseling through artificial intelligence.
- Provide parental controls for minors to let parents access the child's conversations with AI chatbots and set parameters for when the child can access the platform, which would have to notify parents if the child exhibited concerning behaviors.
- Require that data entered into AI is secure and private.
- Prohibit companies from selling or sharing personal identifying information with third parties. This would "mirror data privacy protections in current law."
- Limit insurance companies from using AI for claims and requiring that it cannot be used as the sole determination for a claim.
- Protect utility ratepayers, taxpayers and environmental resources from the impacts of large data centers.
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