Senate committee forwards bill to issue disclaimers on political advertisements that use artificial intelligence
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections passed a bill on Tuesday requiring a disclaimer on certain political advertisements that might use artificial intelligence.
Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-St. Petersburg, sponsored SB 850.
“The increasing access to sophisticated AI-generated content threatens the integrity of elections by facilitating the dissemination of misleading or completely fabricated information that appears more realistic than ever,” DiCeglie told the committee.
Technology producing the advertisements has “outpaced government regulation”, according to DiCeglie.
Rep. Alex Rizo, R-Hialeah, filed a similar companion bill.
“Senate Bill 850 seeks to address the rising concern of deceptive campaign advertising by mandating disclaimers on political ads that contain certain content generated through artificial intelligence,” DiCeglie continued.
Generative artificial intelligence is defined as a “machine based system that can for a given set of human defined objectives emulate the structure and characteristics of input data in order to generate derived synthetic content.”
Images, video, audio, and texts are examples of generated content.
A first degree misdemeanor was amended into the bill for failing to comply with a disclaimer requirement. Alleged violations can be filed and reviewed through the Florida Elections Commission.
Sen. Bobby Powell, D-West Palm Beach, questioned who the penalty would be attached too.
“The disclaimer requirement created by the bill is applicable to the type and purpose of the communication, not to the person creating it,” DiCeglie said. “So it would be in fact the campaign or political committee.”
DiCeglie also addressed further clauses to the amendment.
“A political advertisement must meet, in order for the disclaimer to apply, a requirement that the generated content be created with intent to injure a candidate or to deceive regarding a ballot issue,” DiCeglie said.
Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton, drew surprise to the bill’s consequences.
“I think this bill is not ready yet. I’m very surprised that there’s a crime attached to it. And I think that needs to be cleaned up,” Polsky said.
DiCeglie called the bill “reasonable and responsible.”
“I think the technology is such where this bill as it moves through the process is an important conversation for us to have in this legislature,” DiCeglie said.
SB 850 passed favorably 5-3 by the committee.
