This report is adapted from Rest of World’s recent feature “The global struggle over how to regulate AI,” written by Katie McQue, Laís Martins, Ananya Bhattacharya, and Carien du Plessis.
Brazil has emerged as a champion of tech regulation among emerging economies. It enacted an Internet Bill of Rights in 2014, which established protections on net neutrality, freedom of expression, and privacy. In 2023, a sweeping “Fake News Bill,” as it was popularly called, attempted to force more transparency from social media platforms and hold them accountable for misinformation. The bill passed the Senate — but later died in Brazil’s lower house of Congress after intense public pressure from Google, Meta, and the messaging app Telegram.
Brazil’s comprehensive AI bill was introduced in the Senate in May 2023; it was one of the most comprehensive to date outside the West. It proposed a new oversight authority on AI, copyright protections for content used to train AI, and protections of individual rights, with anti-discriminatory checks in biometric systems and the right to contest AI decisions with significant human impact. It banned autonomous weapons and tools that could facilitate the creation and distribution of child sexual abuse material, and put stricter oversight on social media algorithms that can amplify disinformation. Global advocates for AI regulation saw Brazil as a potential model for other countries.
Senator Marcos Pontes, a 61-year-old former astronaut, had become a central figure in the effort to regulate artificial intelligence in Brazil. Pontes believed the bill could stifle investment and innovation — and saw it, he later told Rest of World, as “based on fear.”
In March 2024, Pontes traveled on a commercial flight to Washington, D.C. with a delegation organized by a Brazilian congressional initiative. Social media posts showed the delegation visiting members of the U.S. government, think-tank staffers, and executives from three major AI companies: Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Pontes said the bill was a focus of the discussions. “We asked them to analyze our legislation,” he said, “and give us some feedback, tell us what they think.”
Pontes told Rest of World his initial concerns that the bill was too strict were reinforced by his trip to the U.S. After he returned, he put forward proposals that included weakening the system for contesting AI decisions; loosening copyright protections; and narrowing the types of AI systems that would be regulated. Pontes also opened a series of hearings on the bill, saying it needed more public debate. Regulation advocates claimed that Big Tech representatives were allowed undue time and influence on the discussions that followed. Critiques of the bill meanwhile came in from other politicians, as well as domestic industry groups, with one warning that it would lead the country into “technological isolation.” The version of the bill that passed the Senate in December included compensation to copyright holders when their content is used to train AI systems; an AI oversight authority; and an autonomous weapons ban. Other regulatory measures remained but were watered down.
Brazil’s AI bill is one window into a global effort to define the role that artificial intelligence will play in democratic societies.
