'We have to reject that with every fiber of our being': DeSantis emerges as a chief AI skeptic

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Politico

12/27/2025 02:00 PM EST


TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis has fought Big Tech before. But his latest battle against artificial intelligence puts him at odds with a rapidly growing industry — and the leader of his party.

As President Donald Trump and top Republicans in Washington push hard to give companies wide latitude, DeSantis has emerged as a leading AI skeptic. He wants to spend his last year as Florida governor beating back the advancement of artificial intelligence, even as it creeps into more facets of everyday life.

“Let’s not try to act like some type of fake videos or fake songs are going to deliver us to some kind of utopia,” the governor said Dec. 18 during an event in Sebring. Unlike many of DeSantis’ high-profile fights, his opposition to AI has little to do with cultural grievances or “woke” ideology — and far more to do with economic disruption, labor displacement and the scale of the technology itself.

He notably has taken aim at data centers sprouting up across the country by attempting to slow their growth in Florida, siding with local communities opposing the massive developments. And DeSantis frequently raises fears of how AI could ultimately upend the economy by displacing countless workers. The Republican rails against what he calls the “mindless slop” AI creates and warns deepfakes and manipulation could pose “a potential existential crisis for self-government.”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/27/we-have-to-reject-that-with-every-fiber-of-our-being-desantis-emerges-as-a-chief-ai-skeptic-00704333

[cachukis]

1. AI is coming, even to his cave.

[EllieBC]

2. Yeah it's coming to destroy everything.

It consumes power and water. And gives us nothing truly valuable in return.

Tech bros have never cared about humanity.

[cachukis]

5. Might argue a bit.

Progress is inevitable. There will always be good and bad.
Seeing solutions to medical problems and others, quickly, has to be good for those needing rescue.
Undermining humanity, on the other hand, started with the greatest connector, money, some time ago. AI is a money maker, in theory.
It might break humanity where capitalism put us on the brink.
We will respond, in ways I can't imagine.
Could humanity be a by product of this tumult?
I am not so well off that I live on an edge. I still have to pay attention and maybe that attentiveness will keep me sharp.

[Polybius]

7. Nothing?

What if that were to change?

[Blasphemer]

3. Fascinating stuff.... GOP turning on the tech bros? nt

[CrispyQ]

4. Damn! I agree with DeSantis!

IMO, he's right on all three counts.

[Aussie105]

6. AI needs a lot of money and resources spent on it.

All in an unsuccessful attempt to duplicate human intelligence.

AI cannot distinguish between fact and fiction, nor can it prioritize a list of possible answers based on the probability of which is the most correct to the least.

Went off AI when I asked it if a new 2025 model of a certain car is available.
Answered in the affirmative, and gave me a link to a number of videos.
All those videos were AI generated, with the cars shown being distinctly different.

A Google search just pointed at those videos, as if they presented real world information.

In fact the REAL WORLD said NO!

AI can sometimes just make stuff up, with no intelligence applied or connection to the Real World.

[DallasNE]

8. I Am A Retired Mainframe Computer Professional

Back in the mid-1990's, I worked on a phone directory assistance application. The backbone was a product called "Soundex", and what it did was to convert the word string the operator keyed in from alpha to numeric. I don't recall the percent variance that was the cutoff point, but for the sake of argument, let's say it was within a 95% match. Let's say they wanted the phone number for William Jensen. It had the intelligence to know that William and Bill would be a high value match, and the same for Jensen, Jansen Jenson, Janson, Jesson, etc. It would do the same with the street address.The operator might say we don't have an exact match at that address but we show an E William Jansen at the street address and the person would say yes and get the phone number. I'm guessing that AI is just a more robust Soundex. That would sometimes return odd results, too. Two different strings of words could convert to non-related "matches". For instance, it might think that "tractor tires" and "brothel services" were a close match based on the numerical conversion.

I can see how AI is a nice tool for apps like my directory assistance example and other similar uses, such as search engines, but how to you convert your legacy system for business-specific reporting requirements, such as a company's monthly report of operations based on a specific Chart of Accounts? I don't see how AI is useful in a situation such as this.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. "I don't see how AI is useful in a situation such as this."

It is tech that is still in its infancy. IOW, it's nowhere near mature yet.

It will get there eventually as it is an inevitable, centuries-long dream (most often described in science fiction).

But for these corporations to insist on deploying it across what are or might be, some critical systems, while it is still in its infancy like this, is begging for a disaster. And many of these business are being pushed/forced/shamed into doing it by the footloose and carefree tech bros, coupled with a natural "herd mentality", where they don't realize that they are probably being sold a bill of goods.