Dec. 15 (UPI) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday said President Donald Trump’s executive order last week seeking national rules on artificial intelligence doesn’t prevent states from imposing laws on the use of the technology.
Speaking at an AI event at Florida Atlantic University, DeSantis said Florida will move forward on AI policies he has dubbed a “Citizen Bill of Rights for Artificial Intelligence.”
“The president issued an executive order. Some people were saying, ‘well, no, this blocks the states,'” DeSantis said, according to The Hill. “It doesn’t.”
Trump signed an executive order Thursday seeking to give the United States a “global AI dominance through a minimally burdensome national policy framework.”
“To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation,” the order says. “But excessive state regulation thwarts this imperative.”
Politico reported the Trump administration has said it’s prepared to file lawsuits and without funding to states that interfere with federal AI plans.
DeSantis said, though, that an executive order can’t block states.
“You can preempt states under Article 1 powers through congressional legislation on certain issues, but you can’t do it through executive order,” he said.
“But if you read it, they actually say a lot of the stuff we’re talking about are things that they’re encouraging states to do. So even reading very broadly, I think the stuff we’re doing is going to be very consistent. But irrespective, clearly we have the right to do this.”