Three heavyweights in AI development recently called for a significant slowdown in the technology, an unusual consensus among competitors that is setting off alarm bells in the industry.

But for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, this is turning into an I-told-you-so moment.

Republican DeSantis has been a well-known skeptic when it comes to the uses of artificial intelligence. He has pushed for AI safeguards, including an AI bill of rights, and spoken out against the rush to build data centers. Under his leadership, the state has passed restrictions on hyperscale data centers. Weirdly, his data center pushback has even wound up aligning him with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent Democratic socialist from Vermont.

DeSantis has been behind a lot of developments that we believe have damaged Florida — his billion-dollar embrace of Trump’s position on illegal immigration, his culture wars, his attacks on reproductive freedom — but this is one time when we agree with him.

DeSantis has taken anti-AI positions while President Donald Trump has gone in the other direction, saying that his priority is making sure the United States isn’t surpassed by China in the race to develop a technology that will reshape society. He posted on social media Monday that the “U.S. has already done enough to prevent artificial intelligence from catastrophic risks and that the dangers posed by the technology are a “HOAX.”

But it’s looking like DeSantis is the one with the right idea on this. Over the weekend, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic; Elon Musk, CEO of xAI and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman all said the pace of development has to slow down. Recent advances have begun to outpace the industry’s ability to fully understand and control the technology.

That’s a scary prospect, and it’s what DeSantis has been warning us about in Florida. “What we’re doing is things that are going to make sure we put Floridians first, that we look out for our own people and not just have people get harmed by this rush to create data centers,” DeSantis said back in December during a news conference.

He couldn’t resist making it about politics — he said Monday that Republicans who oppose AI guardrails will harm their own prospects in the midterm elections — but that doesn’t make him less right. Based on the comments of Big Tech leaders, who spoke up after a 27-year-old Anthropic researcher warned of the existential threat artificial intelligence poses to humans, the potential for an AI catastrophe appears to be real.

DeSantis did sound a note of caution, though. The sudden agreement of AI company leaders about potential dangers — and the need for independent safety evaluators, industry-wide standards and maybe even government action — may not be exactly what it seems, the governor warned in a recent Politico story.

It’s possible that the tech companies are trying to seem open to government input to position themselves favorably to influence whatever comes next, such as future regulations. Or, the companies could be trying to make sure they are considered for a government bailout if they wind up losing vast sums of money as they race headlong into AI.

And public sentiment seems to be growing against AI — perhaps, as DeSantis said, it’s because Americans think the companies want to intrude on their lives. “I don’t want to see four or five companies basically controlling our lives through the guise of artificial intelligence or whatever technology comes down,” he said.

DeSantis has said he wants to allow states a role in the control of AI use, especially through the courts, if AI causes harm. The governor’s appointed attorney general, James Uthmeier, is advocating for new laws that would allow his office to criminally charge companies if illegal acts are carried out using their chatbots, such as creating child sexual abuse materials.

Florida’s next governor should follow DeSantis’ lead: AI is dangerous and needs to be curbed now, while we still can.

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