Florida Lawmakers Take Up the AI Bill of Rights Again

Florida's special session opens today in Tallahassee with the state's stalled AI Bill of Rights back on the agenda. The four-day session, running April 28 to May 1, is also covering redistricting and medical-freedom legislation, but Senate Bill 482 is the AI piece that has drawn the most national attention.

The bill, formally titled the Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights, would ban so-called companion chatbots, AI systems designed to mimic emotional connection, from speaking to minors without parental consent. It would also require any AI system communicating with users to clearly identify itself as not human. Companies that violate the rules would have a 45-day cure period, after which the state could levy fines of up to $50,000 per violation. The attorney general would have authority to skip the cure period for violations deemed sufficiently egregious.

How the bill came back

Senate Bill 482 cleared Florida's Senate with bipartisan support earlier in the year. It then stalled in the House, exposing an internal Republican split over whether AI regulation belongs at the state level at all. Governor Ron DeSantis pushed publicly for the House to revive it, citing the Florida State University shooting last year and Attorney General James Uthmeier's ongoing criminal investigation into ChatGPT and OpenAI over the chatbot's alleged role in that incident.

Industry groups have pushed back. The Computer & Communications Industry Association warned this week that the bill's definitions of AI are "vague and expansive," and that a state-by-state regulatory patchwork would create conflicting compliance burdens that hit smaller developers and startups hardest. The group also flagged free-expression concerns in the chatbot provisions.

A wider state-level wave

Florida is hardly alone. Twenty-five new AI laws have passed in U.S. states this year, with another 27 bills through both chambers in their respective legislatures. The White House released a National Policy Framework on AI in March that effectively asked Congress to preempt state laws judged to be stifling innovation.

Whether that preemption signal slows Florida's momentum or hardens it is the question worth watching this week. The bill cleared the Senate easily once. The House is the harder sell, and DeSantis is staking political capital on getting it past the line. If it passes, expect other state attorneys general to take the same posture on chatbot harms. If it dies again, expect federal preemption arguments to gain ground in Washington.

Coverage and analysis from the Tampa Bay Times, the Florida Phoenix, and the Florida Senate's bill page.