Ron DeSantis Calls for Regulations on AI

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has floated the idea of legislation regulating artificial intelligence (AI) in Florida. The governor made public comments about AI on two straight days: first in Panama City Beach on Monday, then in Orlando on Tuesday. He’s indicated he intends to roll out a plan addressing AI in the coming months. “I think there’s going to be a lot of things that come down the pike, but don’t have any illusions,” DeSantis said per Florida Politics. “People are going to use AI to scam, to cheat, to steal, to harm people. And I think we’re going to have to come to grips. I mean we’re going to be working on a policy for Florida, and it may require some legislation to be able to provide adequate protections for folks.” He also said that the advancement of AI could functionally “turn over our society to a handful of big tech companies”. According to a March report from IOT Analytics, California-based tech company Nvidia is by far the leading generative AI corporation with 92.0% of the market’s graphics processing units. In his Panama City Beach appearance, DeSantis questioned the reliability and utility of artificial intelligence. “It’s another thing for technology to try to supplant the human experience, and to act like humans don’t even really need to think for themselves,” he said. “Artificial intelligence is wrong a lot of the time.” What About The Big Beautiful Bill? “I think there needs to be guardrails,” DeSantis continued. “I think there needs to be some rules of the road.” At one point it seemed as though the highly-analyzed ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, a spending package championed by President Donald Trump and passed by Congress, might’ve made this impossible. Now the proposal is merely problematic. The bill came dangerously close to banning state and local regulations on AI for ten years, before scrapping that provision late in the going. Instead, states who don’t adopt a ban on AI regulation appear poised to lose federal broadband funding for the next five years. The Job Market Also informing DeSantis’ skepticism about AI is his view that it could negatively affect Florida’s job market. “You have folks that graduate college, they go in for more entry-level stuff, maybe it’s more kind of grunt work,” he said. “AI is replacing some of those jobs. So what’s that going to do to the job market?” However, the governor’s actions don’t totally match these words. In June, he vetoed HB 827, a piece of legislation directing the Florida Department of Commerce to conduct annual studies on the effects of AI and automation on jobs. He said that these reports would be obsolete by the time they were published. “AI trends are ever-evolving in delivery, skill development, and in-demand career tracks,” he said in his veto, showcasing a notable evolution of his stance from then to now. According to a 2024 study by the Institute for Public Policy Research, 60% of administrative jobs can be automated. Contrary to popular sentiment, it may be white collar jobs which are hit first: Forbes’ Jack Kelly speculates that professions such as bookkeeping, financial modeling, data analysis, and even certain legal assistant jobs are vulnerable to cost-cutting automation. AI Around the World An American company like Nvidia leading the AI race isn’t an isolated phenomenon. According to the 2025 AI Index Report, the United States leads the world in AI investment with $471 billion from 2013 to 2024. The top nations are as follows. United States – $471 billion China – $119 billion United Kingdom – $28 billion Canada – $15 billion Israel – $15 billion Germany – $13 billion France – $11 billion India – $11 billion South Korea – $9 billion Singapore – $7 billion Sweden – $7 billion