On Tuesday, January 9^th, the regular Florida legislative session commenced and will stretch until March 8^th. In no order, here are some interesting bills that have some eyes on them, and what they propose.  

By Ryder Navarra

1. House Bill 49 covers the long-standing child labor laws of Florida, which were previously that a minor child in between the age of 16 or 17 cannot work for more than four hours a day without a thirty-minute unpaid break and cannot work for more than six-consecutive days, with no more than 30 hours of work per week. This bill aims to revise the long-standing rules and form a different system for working minor children. Although no specific details of how much the current laws would change, If the Bill passes, minor children between the ages of 16 and 17 would be able to work longer shifts, and not have such a hard curfew of 11 PM on school nights.  
2. House Bill 1549 covers the use of Artificial Intelligence, and the awareness of those who use the tool. The bill proposes that the creator and publisher of an AI tool must publicly come forward with a clear statement of the tool’s purpose and a saftey warning, as well as make every piece of AI generated content known to be such. Additionally, the bill puts restrictions on the use of AI, putting limitations on video and image creation software to not depict a person without their consent. If this bill passes, it will put certain people at ease over the liable and false information AI may be able to spread.  
3. House Bill 3 proposes the potential age verification of websites that contain materials that may be harmful to minors. If the bill passes, websites will be required to provide proper age verification of their content and report any unlawful or fraudulent claims of age. Lying about one’s age may result in civil penalties that are not specifically claimed.  
4. Senate Bill 162 proposes the changing of the state bird from the previous one, the mockingbird, to the scrub-jay. Although the bill is seen as boring, it is the first time the bird has had serious competition, with the northern mockingbird being the state of Florida’s bird since 1927.