By Jim Turner | News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE --- After vetoing a bill about studying the effects of artificial intelligence on Florida workers, Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state will develop a plan to prevent “tech overlords” from taking over.
While offering few details, DeSantis warned Monday of “very dangerous” impacts of rapidly changing AI.
“It’s one thing to use technology to enhance the human experience, but it’s another thing to have technology supplant the human experience,” DeSantis said during an appearance in Jacksonville.
He added that Florida will “develop a coherent approach to this.”
“We can’t put our head in the sand and just say we’re not going to deal with AI at all, because it is becoming a fact of life,” DeSantis said. “But, you know, we can’t just turn the reins over to a bunch of tech overlords. That doesn’t work. That ultimately isn’t going to be what’s best.”
DeSantis on June 30 vetoed a bill (HB 827) dealing with automation and artificial intelligence. The bill, which passed the Legislature in April with only one dissenting vote, would have directed part of the state Department of Commerce to study issues such as job losses and gains.
“Recognizing that AI trends are ever-evolving in delivery, skill development and in-demand career tracks, it makes no sense to wait for the report to be published by the state’s labor statistics bureau,” DeSantis wrote in a veto letter. “Indeed, such a report --- to the extent it has value --- would likely be obsolete by the time it was actually published.”
But Rep. Leonard Spencer, a Gotha Democrat who sponsored the bill, expressed disappointment in the veto.
“It was a proactive, data-driven approach --- designed not to regulate innovation, but to better understand how it is reshaping our economy, labor markets and communities,” Spencer said in a statement.
Last month, DeSantis criticized a congressional proposal that would have prevented states from regulating artificial intelligence. The U.S. Senate ultimately rejected the proposal.
But ALFA Institute, a tech accelerator chaired by former U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the idea will “live to fight another day,” according to Route Fifty, a sister publication of The News Service of Florida.
“Congress continues to treat AI like something that can be safely bracketed into old models and frameworks. That instinct --- to sideline, defer, delay --- doesn’t just waste time. It opens the door for a fragmented, 50-state patchwork that undermines any semblance of a national strategy,” ALFA Institute said in a blog post.