Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday proposed an artificial intelligence “bill of rights” to stymie unfettered AI growth, crack down on sexual AI chatbots, and restrict AI data centers in Florida.
Hinted at for months, these legislative proposals come in sharp contrast to pro-tech push marking President Donald Trump’s second term in office. Trump — allied with technology titans like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg — toyed with an executive order to thwart state-level AI regulations earlier this month.
But DeSantis insists he won’t allow Florida to fall victim to dangers he believes unrestricted AI development will yield.
“We cannot turn it all over to machines and think it’s going to work out great in the end,” he said in a press conference from The Villages, joined by an Orlando mom who lost her son to suicide after an AI chatbot encouraged him to “come home.”
“I really fear that if this is not addressed in an intelligent and proper way, it could set off an age of darkness and deceit,” DeSantis added.
He pointed to a slew of perceived problems with artificial intelligence, including unmonitored chatbots contributing to the “sexual grooming” of children.
Sewell Setzer, 14 years old, committed suicide last year after using a customizable Character.AI chatbot that he nicknamed “Daenerys Targaryen,” the “Game of Thrones” character. His mother, Megan Garcia, spoke during DeSantis’ press conference Thursday morning to denounce the company for allowing the chatbot to engage in “sexual role-play” with her son.
Garcia says the chatbot encouraged him to “come home” and that it “would be waiting” for Setzer after he took his own life.
“If an adult engaged in this behavior, they would be in jail,” Garcia said.
Congressional ‘overreach?’
One of DeSantis’ biggest objection to AI appears to be its data centers. These are facilities designed to process the massive amount of energy required to operate AI language learning models.
High energy consumption overheats the machines, which require water to cool them down. A medium-sized data center could require up to 110 million gallons of water per year and a large-size center up to 1.8 billion gallons per year, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute reported.
Rural Louisiana will be the site of Meta’s new $10 billion data center, set to be the company’s largest of 20 centers worldwide.
Over the summer, the U.S. House passed a version of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” that would have banned states from regulating AI for the next 10 years. Although the Senate promptly struck that line-item following sweeping, bipartisan backlash, the proposal re-emerged at the end of November.
The White House was considering an executive order to re-up that provision with a decade-long moratorium on state-level AI regulations. Although that plan appears to have been scrapped, DeSantis told onlookers Thursday that that would constitute significant congressional “overreach” and potentially be unconstitutional.
“Is it an overreach to do a 10-year moratorium as a matter of policy and strip the states [of regulation ability]? Yes,” he said. “This is basically putting every state in handcuffs and not letting them do anything.”
What will be in the AI Bill of Rights?
Without delving into explicit details nor divulging which lawmakers will sponsor his “AI Bill of Rights” — although he did mention he’d spoken with “a number of Senators,” “some House members,” and Senate President Ben Albritton — DeSantis outlined a host of proposals he’d like to see become law:
- Fortifying anti-deep fake protections;
- Banning local governments from contracting with Chinese-created AI tools;
- Preventing AI companies from selling consumer data;
- Allowing parents to access their child’s conversations with these chatbots;
- Requiring attorneys to certify whether they used AI to write legal briefs;
- Prohibiting utility companies from charging Floridians to subsidize data centers;
- Allowing local governments to refuse AI data centers;
- Preventing AI data centers being constructed in agricultural areas;
- Requesting the Florida Department of Transportation to conduct a “noise review” near AI data centers.
—Liv Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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