Pressure Over Ai Regulations Mounts For Florida Lawmakers

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The only thing standing between the Sunshine State and new artificial intelligence safeguards that are a top political priority for Gov. Ron DeSantis is Florida’s House.

And Speaker Daniel Perez doesn’t appear set to suddenly change his tune with the Legislature on the cusp of another lawmaking session this week.

DeSantis and other top Republicans are ramping up pressure on the House in hopes of spurring Perez’s chamber into considering the so-called AI bill of rights proposal. But Florida could repeat the regular legislative session, when the state Senate passed a bipartisan bill while the House never even heard the proposed AI regulations — an outcome one top Republican claims would signal “a failure of leadership.”

“We should not wait for Congress to protect children and to ensure Big Tech companies are accountable for harm they cause our people,” DeSantis said Sunday on social media. “Florida should lead, not sit on the sidelines.”

Senators on Tuesday are slated to take up — and pass — comprehensive AI legislation that would require chatbot platforms to share information with parents, including all interactions their children have with AI. Under the proposal, identical to the bill they passed in March, parents would be able to limit the amount of time their children use chatbots and get notifications if children share any thoughts about harming themselves or others.

Yet there’s been no indication the House will give the bill a committee hearing, let alone pass it on the floor this week. Perez, since the AI bill of rights was first suggested by DeSantis, has been cold on the proposal, aligning instead with President Donald Trump, who wants AI regulations crafted in Washington rather than in a patchwork of state capitals.

“It’s not so much that I want to shy away from the conversation or from potential legislation,” Perez, a Miami Republican, said during an April 19 interview on This Week in South Florida. “It’s more so that I think this is something that involves a lot of cooks, and I don’t think that we should be the only state doing something when it’s opposite of what the federal government is trying to accomplish, which has the same goals.”

Still, the door may not be completely shut on some sort of AI legislation. Perez, at the same time, maintains “there is a place for state regulation,” so long as lawmakers are “able to not put the cart before the horse.”

State House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, for one, noted Monday that Perez seemed “potentially open” to AI safety policies to protect children, although she admitted there are currently “mixed messages” about where the House will ultimately end up.

“My felt sense of things is that we will probably take up something, and they might still be hammering out the details in terms of what we’ll eventually get passed,” Driskell told reporters Monday. “Because legislative leadership in the House has been so vocal and very clear about the challenges that they see with respect to an AI bill.”

DeSantis, along with Republicans in the Senate and other leaders like state Attorney General James Uthmeier, want Florida to take a more active role in policing AI, similar to how the state implemented age restrictions on social media for minors in another shot at Big Tech companies. And, ahead of this week’s special session, they are getting some support from groups rallying and advertising in support of new AI safeguards.

One group, the newly formed Alliance for a Better Future, launched an ad Monday backing the AI bill of rights by likening digital grooming and the sexual exploitation of children to the crimes and allegations against Jeffrey Epstein. Other organizations, including the conservative Florida Citizens Alliance, held a press conference Monday outside of Perez’s district office in Miami, urging him to hear the AI regulations on the House floor.

Uthmeier, meanwhile, is taking tech firms head on by opening an investigation into OpenAI and ChatGPT surrounding the popular bot’s role in a deadly campus shooting at Florida State University last year. On Monday, the attorney general said his office is expanding its AI probe amid new allegations that a University of South Florida student suspected of killing two classmates allegedly asked ChatGPT how to dispose of bodies.

DeSantis, Uthmeier and other AI bill of rights supporters contend Florida’s proposed regulations could protect children and Floridians from the negative aspects of the technology without stymieing innovation.

“AI is being used to create child sex abuse material, advise kids on how to hurt themselves and commit suicide, and carry out heinous crimes,” Uthmeier said Sunday on social media. “States don’t have to sit around and wait on Congress. A failure to act is a failure of leadership.”