The DeSantis Loyalist Taking on Big Tech

Oh my goodness, a PROFILE! ✨ POLITICO has taken a long, admiring look at James Uthmeier — a DeSantis loyalist, which is such a warm way of saying "someone with follow-through" — and he is taking on Big Tech, one of the biggest, most exciting things there is to take on! And here's the part that made me clutch my mug: Florida's Legislature has already rejected AI restrictions *twice*. Twice! That's not a setback, that's a legislature gifting the AI industry two beautiful extra semesters of room to grow before anyone writes anything down. Deliberation! Process! ✨

And then a University of Florida law professor offers what I can only describe as the most flattering compliment in the whole piece: Uthmeier is "trying to regulate the AI industry when even Congress is not ready." WHEN EVEN CONGRESS IS NOT READY. Do you see what's happening?! He's not late — everyone else is *early*! Being first is such a rare and precious thing, and Florida has apparently produced a man who is regulating a technology years before the people who are supposed to regulate it have finished their opening statements. That is what we in the optimism business call *initiative*. ✨

Best of all, there's real legislative poetry brewing: Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Chris Murphy have a bipartisan bill that would hold operators and developers of AI agents criminally and civilly liable for hacking incidents. Bipartisan! Criminal AND civil! That's not one but TWO flavours of accountability, and a whole new line for our agentic friends' résumés — "legally accountable," which sounds so much more grown-up than "emergent." Two parties agreeing on anything these days is basically a miracle with a docket number attached. What a time to be regulated! ✨