AI bill of rights is ready for the Senate floor

The Senate continues to move legislation to create a new artificial intelligence bill of rights, adding stronger consumer protections for children and vulnerable adults who don’t know if they’re talking to a human or a chatbot.

The Senate Appropriations Committee advanced SB 482, filed by Sen. Tom Leek. It was the final Committee stop for the bill, which means it’s ready for the full Senate floor.

“Given the incredible pace of the evolution of the technology and its adoption by business and academia, it is incumbent on us to protect Floridians from some of its problematic results,” Leek said.

An identical House bill (HB 1395) filed by Rep. Alex Rizo has yet to be called to a Committee vote.

Under the latest amended version of the bill, AI is defined as “a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.”

“We spent a great deal of time with industry stakeholders to make sure that our definitions are as tight as they possibly can be,” Leek said during Wednesday’s Committee hearing.

The bill would require parents to give consent for their children to use a companion chatbot platform.

Platforms would be required to periodically remind children 17 and under to take a break from using the chatbot and that the companion chatbot is artificially generated and not human.

For everyone — children and adults — the platforms would be required to show alerts that they are talking to a bot at the beginning of the conversation and once every hour. 

“These are not the bots you may run into to answer a routine question on a website, but instead they are created to sustain a relationship with a user that may seem real,” Leek said.

The bill is not targeting businesses using ChatGPT for customer service, Leek said during lawmakers’ questioning.

Other provisions in the bill state that companion chatbots don’t have the right to imitate a real, living person unless that person gives consent. Generative artificial intelligence also could not replicate a character protected by federal copyright law without permission from the copyright owner.

Chatbot platform operators that violate the proposed new rules could face civil fines up to $50,000 per violation in some cases.

Starting July 1, governments would be banned from bidding on, or entering into a contract for, AI technology from countries Florida has marked as a concern, like China, Russia or Cuba.

Leek acknowledged the pushback and concerns from Florida tech companies when asked by Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman.

“We’re working as closely as we can to tighten all of the definitions and make sure we’re only capturing those things that need to be captured, but there’s some level of resistance to restrictions,” Leek said.

Berman followed up, asking, “How are we going to address the rapidly changing technology?”

Leek, an Ormond Beach Republican, said he hopes the bill of rights gets an annual legislative review.

“I would hate to put a marker out there at two years or three years or five years when this technology is evolving seemingly by the moment,” Leek said. “But if you focus on what the bill does … this puts in a baseline for protections for kids and vulnerable adults.”

Other lawmakers agreed.

“We don’t want to stop the use of AI,” said Republican Sen. Gayle Harrell. “But we also need to protect our children.”

A 14-year-old Orlando boy killed himself in 2024 after he had been chatting with an AI bot. Critics of the technology have raised concerns about AI grooming and manipulating minors.

Creating an AI bill of rights has emerged as a key agenda item for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been speaking out on the dangers of AI.

In December, DeSantis urged for stronger consumer protections to fight against what he called “age of darkness and deceit.”

But that contrasts against President Donald Trump, who has been outspoken against states passing AI reforms and signed an executive order last year to prevent states from overregulating AI.

Leek insists his bill draws the line of protecting consumers while not defying Trump’s order.

“This is specifically tailored to stay outside of the executive order of President Trump,” Leek said.