FL Gov DeSantis Fights Back Against Big AI Tech Companies

written January, 13, 2026

“We have to fight this with every fiber of our being!” – FL Governor Ron DeSantis¹

While the world at large has ignored the warnings and pleas of AI godfathers and top scientists who fear the unharnessed potential and capabilities of so-called Artificial Intelligence, one Florida Governor has defied the US national trend and has taken a stand against Big Tech on behalf of the little people. Still, even after DeSantis empathized with families of Floridians who lost loved ones to AI-manipulated suicides, the question remains: is it just a matter of time before the pressure to use AI becomes inevitable and how far will our elected officials go to defend human rights?

Last month (Dec 2025), in his final state of the state speech, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took a bold stand against Big AI Tech companies², proposing a Citizen AI Bill of Rights³ ⁴ to protect Floridians while simultaneously hoping to curtail the development of AI Data Centers being built at the expense of Florida’s natural environment without significant benefit to the community.

Full Speech – Establishing Florida’s AI Bill of Rights (YouTube external)
Full Speech – Roundtable on AI @ FAU [w/witness testimonies] (YouTube external)

“We’re all [ ] about technologies that can enhance our experience as Floridians and Americans and as human beings, but what we don’t want to do is be subsidizing or put a thumb on the scale for technologies that are gonna supplant the human experience or to try to take over … and you’ll even here some people say, ‘Oh, AI’s gonna run everything, we’re not even gonna be able to control it’ uh, no, that ain’t workin’. We the people are in control of our own destiny…We are not gonna turn over the reigns to things we cannot control.” – Ron DeSantis, Roundtable on AI at FAU

DeSantis called himself an “Individual and Human exceptionalist” as opposed to what he calls “AI exceptionalism”, those boasting of AI being able to solve every problem to the point humans won’t even be needed and will simply depend on a universal basic income. He says this raises huge concerns in reality.

The Universal Basic Income DeSantis refers to is what Elon Musk boldly re-frames as a “universal high income” and tweets “sustainable abundance” for all. He predicts this will be in full effect within the next decade or so due to the advancement of AI tech.

There will be universal high income (not merely basic income).

Everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else.

Sustainable abundance.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2025

Personal Remarks: Star Trek, eh…? (*Tries to imagine being in space without ever having been in space*) And if we don’t do it right, it could end up like Terminator …We don’t want that one, no. Certainly not… so…how exactly do we NOT end up with that one? Who exactly is signing up for this experiment to find out?…which one we get…. ?…?…? “Hopefully happiness that we can’t quite imagine yet.” When did conservative republicans… Is this real life? Kinda makes me feel pullin’ a Beiber after the dentist visit…Is it just me or…what happened to ~~virtual~~ actual reality?

Continuing…(more seriously)

Meanwhile, average citizens and global governments and infrastructures remain on standby as the wealthy elite decide the fate of the world as we now know it.⁵

Ron DeSantis: “Maybe the most significant change that’s currently being done, not just in America, but really around the world, is this rise of artificial intelligence. There are some people that say ‘ya know, the right policy is to just give big tech whatever they want’, subsidize it and all this stuff, and somehow that’s gonna lead us to some happy place. I reject that. […] I know that that’s not accurate and I know that’s not in the best interests of either the State of Florida or the United States of America.” – DeSantis

“New Technologies have to be developed in a way that aligns with American values -things like self-government, free speech, having a healthy labor force, federalism, and the rights of states in the creation and maintenance of strong families. You want technologies that enhance our way of life, not supplant our way of life and we will never, ever be able to credibly shed ourselves of our responsibility to think for ourselves. We cannot turn it all over to machines and think it’s all going to work out great in the end.” – Ron DeSantis, AI Bill of Rights speech

The FL Republican has taken many opportunities to stand alongside and support the directives of President Donald Trump, but here he took a detour.

The standoff places DeSantis on a collision course not only with tech companies, but with Trump’s effort to position himself as the party’s chief arbiter of AI policy. – POLITICO⁶

One year ago, in January 2025, President Trump approved funding of $500 billion dollars to the private sector for the development of AI technologies. (YouTube video external link)

“On the first day of his second term, Trump repealed President Biden’s first executive order on AI, which sought to regulate AI risks, signaling the new administration’s adoption of a lighter regulatory approach to AI, national security focus, and enhancement of the U.S. competitive edge in AI development.” – Pillsbury Law⁷

AI Social Damage

“Should your life be turned upside down for something that you had nothing to do with and people are just doing that?” – Ron DeSantis, Roundtable on AI at FAU

During his address, Gov. DeSantis remarked on several victims of artificial intelligence abuse and had several parents on his panel along with an official from the Florida Cyber Crime department to speak on the growing concerns of mental health and suicide related to AI interactions.

The above remarks were directed towards an incident of a young FL teen who was the victim of a school prank. A fellow student saved a photo of her found on Instagram and used AI to turn it into a nude photo and then displayed it for the rest of the school to see. While humiliating and life-changing for the teenage girl, it resulted in HB 757 addressing “deepfake porn.”

The measure, House Bill 757, makes it a felony to create, share or even possess AI-generated sexually explicit images of someone without consent. It also allows victims to sue for damages and requires platforms to create takedown systems by the end of 2025. -CBS 12 FL⁸

Mother Megan Garcia and father Sewell Jr. say that even with precautionary technology controls in place in their home, their son still fell victim to the manipulations of AI and it cost him his very life. The couple used their experience to form a parents group for others going through the same grief. The lawsuit was settled by Google⁹.

Megan Garcia filed a lawsuit in October 2024, saying her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer, III, died in February after conducting a months-long virtual emotional and sexual relationship with a chatbot known as “Dany.” Garcia says she found out after her son’s death that he was having conversations with multiple bots and he conducted a virtual romantic and sexual relationship with one in particular. In testimony before Congress in September, Garcia said, “I became the first person in the United States to file a wrongful death lawsuit against an AI company for the suicide of my son.” – CBS News¹⁰

Another Mom from Texas, Mandy, shared a similar story of her son, previously a high-functioning autistic with straight A’s. She also had strict measures on use of technology, but her son was just released after being in mental facility a full year due to attempted suicide following interactions with an AI chatbot. She’s become an activist to lobby for better legislation around AI safety and guardrails. She fears her son will never recover from the mental damage he’s incurred.

“We also want to make sure that people are not able to use your name, image and likeness without your consent for monetization or things of that nature…We believe there should be a transparency to consumers and that there should be a notice that they are interacting with artificial intelligence.” – Ron DeSantis, AI Bill of Rights

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/florida-woman-swindled-into-giving-15k-after-ai-clones-daughters-voice/3660507/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/parents-allege-harmful-character-ai-chatbot-content-60-minutes/

In closing opinion, even though AI is still a fairly new technology for most of the world, its advancement has been unprecedented and only promises to continue accelerating at a rate no one is really prepared for -regardless of what the evolutionary transhumanists would have you believe- and without swift action to guard humanity against its dangers…well, I think we’re just seeing the beginning of the costs to come.

“The idea of this transhumanist strain, that somehow this is going to supplant humans and this other stuff, we have to reject that with every fiber of our being,” DeSantis said Dec. 15 during an AI event in Jupiter. “We as individual human beings are the ones that were endowed by God with certain inalienable rights. That’s what our country was founded upon — they did not endow machines or these computers for this.” – POLITICO¹¹

What about you?

Do you agree with having a bill of rights against AI? Should we continue using AI without better public awareness and protections? Are you ready for job replacement and universal income? Please share your angle and perspective in the comments below.

Still human,

iam:ForeverBlessed