Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that the state will work with the Florida Legislature to establish an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bill of Rights for individual Floridians during a press conference at The Villages this week.
"This will be very far-reaching with consumer protections. It will do things like fortify some of the protections we have in place for things like deep fakes and use of explicit material, particularly those that depict minors," DeSantis said.
During his remarks, Gov. DeSantis specified that the bill will include data protections, particularly to stop Chinese influence. The Chinese government has become a growing threat to American influence, including through vape products.
"We're not going to allow any state or local government agency to utilize Chinese-created AI tools when they're doing data here in the state of Florida," DeSantis said.
In addition, DeSantis promised to protect individuals from the weaponization of name, image, and likeness (NIL) schemes, including fabricating words and statements made by politicians in commercials that were never said.
The governor noted the trick could increase in the future, and possibly influence voters who might believe something was said by a candidate that was otherwise false. Notably, the deception could affect the 2026 midterm elections, with the House of Representatives up for grabs.
Moreover, the governor pointed out that AI tricks could impact Florida businesses, leading to potential abuse. DeSantis also cautioned that the growing technology could pose a threat to state businesses at a press conference last month.
To further the fight, DeSantis vowed to add protections for parents and children against LLM chatbots, which are AI-generated agents that use a large language model to create human-like text.
Added safeguards for parents will include protections against child access and notifications for the child if they exhibit concerning behavior.
The call precluded emotional testimony from Megan Garcia, whose 14-year-old son died by suicide after allegedly being sexually groomed by a chatbot.
The plan also somewhat mimics a Florida bill to protect minors 14 and under from accessing social media. That bill, HB 3, was recently granted a stay by a federal court after it was blocked by a lower court, thus allowing the state to begin enforcing the law.
Furthermore, DeSantis promised to protect consumers' private information from AI. He noted that the technology could be used against a participant for asking a question about a product, opening up privacy concerns.
"We will not allow companies to sell or share personal identifying information with third parties, and we're going to mirror our data privacy protections that are in current law," DeSantis said.
He also vowed to protect consumers against unfair claims practices, as well as the use of AI in legal briefs.
"If you file an insurance claim, you can't just be denied by AI, you gotta have a human review, and a human being has to stand by a decision whether to grant or deny a claim," DeSantis said. "Just think, you hire a lawyer, you have a claim, they file a brief, and they have fake cases because they're they were doing AI. That's malpractice."
In his closing remarks, the governor also pledged to fight against data centers. The new technology, which DeSantis acknowledged was practically unheard of six months ago, essentially acts as a hub for AI to be run through using large servers and storage systems.
The facilities also require a ton of power, which DeSantis indicated could affect Floridians' electric costs. He also added that the state would prohibit utilities from charging residents more for water, gas, and electricity to support data centers, as well as from receiving potential subsidies.
"You're in a community, you pay your electric bill, you have a data center come in, and then they need all that power. What's going to happen to your electric bill?" DeSantis questioned. "A lot of people have seen their bills go up because we have a limited grid. You do not have enough grid capacity in the United States to do what they're trying to do."
