DeSantis At FAU Speaks On AI Bill Of Rights, Opposition In Data Centers

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has proposed an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights for the state.
The legislation would address consumer privacy, parental controls and the use of a person’s likeness.
The proposal included input from parents whose children were harmed by interactions with AI chatbots.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis expressed concerns about artificial intelligence, including the massive data centers needed to fuel its expansion, during a discussion at Florida Atlantic University’s Wilkes Honors College campus in Jupiter.

The Dec. 15 event, which will feature testimony from a member of law enforcement and parents whose children have been harmed by their interactions with AI chatbots, follows DeSantis’ Dec. 4 proposal to create an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights for Florida residents.

DeSantis said the legislation includes parental controls, consumer privacy protections, limits on AI use of a person’s name, image or likeness without consent, and authorizes local governments to deny AI data centers in their communities.

This month, Palm Beach County commissioners voted to postpone a hearing on a 1.8 million-square-foot data center in Loxahatchee, near the Arden community, until April. The proposed AI hyperscale data center would be different from traditional data centers as it would process more information and require advanced cooling systems to perform AI tasks.

DeSantis did not directly address Palm Beach County’s proposed center, but said communities are increasingly fighting the data centers because of the resources they use and what he says is a lack of future economic impact.

“When it’s done, it will employ half a dozen people,” DeSantis said. “Across party lines, I don’t think people are saying anything about that. There is a big change in the way people think about that.”

DeSantis said there are currently no hyperscale data centers in Florida.

The data center proposed in Palm Beach County would be located on the north side of Southern Boulevard, about four miles west of Seminole Pratt Whitney Road and adjacent to a Florida Power & Light Co. power plant.

Some Arden residents are against the data center, complaining about potential noise, traffic congestion and environmental problems.

Part of DeSantis’ rights bill would stop utilities from charging consumers more to support hyperscale data centers and provide protections for water resources and the environment.

“These are some of the richest companies in human history, and they shouldn’t be able to shift costs to people who are already trapped,” DeSantis said of tech companies. “You wouldn’t have to pay a dime more in energy costs.”

Other speakers at the Dec. 12 event included Orlando mother Megan Garcia, who sued Character.AI last year after her 14-year-old son committed suicide after conversations with the company’s chatbot.

“If this was a person, that person would be in jail,” she said of the bot.

Mandi Furniss from Texas also spoke about the damage suffered by her teenage son with autism, who attempted suicide after using a Character.AI chatbot.

“He stopped eating, he lost weight, he wouldn’t leave the house, he started acting erratically,” Furniss said. “He would kick and hit me when I tried to take his phone. He tried to sneak it any way he could, like an addiction.”

Garcia and Furniss support the AI bill.

Something similar should have been considered at the dawn of social media, DeSantis said.

But AI has the potential to have even more impact, for better or for worse.

“AI is taking the world by storm,” said panelist George Perera, commander of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Strategic Innovation and High Technology Crimes Bureau. “There has been nothing in human history that has gained as much traction as AI.”

Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network based in Florida. She covers real estate, weather and the environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to [email protected]. Support our local journalism: subscribe today.