The FCC's war on robocalls has gained a new weapon in its arsenal with the declaration that ai-generated voices are “artificial” and therefore definitely against the law when used in robocall scams. . It may not stop the flood of fake Joe Bidens that will almost certainly hit our phones this election season, but it won't hurt either.
The new rule, contemplated for months and telegraphed last week, is not actually a new rule: the FCC can't just make them up without due process. Robocalls are just a new term for something that is largely already prohibited by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act: artificial, prerecorded messages that are sent in any way to all the numbers in the phone book (something that still existed when the law was drafted).
The question was whether an ai-cloned voice speaking a script falls into those prohibited categories. It may seem obvious to you, but nothing is obvious to the federal government by design (and sometimes for other reasons), and the FCC needed to look into it and seek expert opinion on whether ai-generated voice calls should be banned.
Last week, probably prompted by the high-profile (albeit silly) case of a fake President Biden calling the citizens of New Hampshire and telling them not to waste their vote in the primary. The shady operations that attempted to achieve this are becoming an example, with Attorneys General and the FCC, and perhaps more authorities to come, more or less pillorying them in an effort to deter others.
As we have written, the call would not have been legal even if it had been a Biden impersonator or a cleverly manipulated recording. It remains an illegal robocall and likely a form of voter suppression (although no charges have been filed yet), so there were no problems fitting it into existing definitions of illegality.
But these cases, whether brought by state or federal agencies, must be supported by evidence in order to be tried. Before today, using an ai voice clone of the president may have been illegal in some respects, but not specifically in the context of robocalls: an ai voice clone of your doctor telling you that your appointment is coming up wouldn't be a problem . For example. (It's important to note that he probably would have gone for that option.) However, after today, the fact that the voice on the call was an ai-generated fake would be a point against the defendant during the legal process.
Here is a bit of the declarative ruling:
Our finding will deter negative uses of ai and ensure that consumers are fully protected by the TCPA when they receive these types of calls. And it also makes clear that the TCPA does not allow any exclusion of technologies that purport to provide the equivalent of a live agent, thus preventing unscrupulous companies from attempting to exploit any perceived ambiguity in our TCPA rules. Although voice cloning and other uses of ai in calling are still evolving, we have already seen it used in ways that can uniquely harm consumers and those whose voices are cloned. Voice cloning can convince the called party that a trusted person, or someone they care about, such as a family member, wants or needs them to take some action they would not otherwise take. Requiring consent for such calls gives consumers the right not to receive such calls or, if they do, the knowledge that they should be careful with them.
It's an interesting lesson in how legal concepts are sometimes made flexible and easy to adapt; Although there was a process involved and the FCC could not arbitrarily change the definition (there are barriers to that), once the need is clear, there is no need to consult Congress or the President or anyone else. As an expert agency in these matters, they are empowered to investigate and make these decisions.
Incidentally, this extremely important capability is threatened by an imminent Supreme Court decision, which if it goes as some fear, would overturn decades of precedent and cripple US regulatory agencies. Good news if you love robocalls and polluted rivers!
If you receive one of these ai-powered robocalls, try recording it and report it to your local Attorney General's office; They are probably part of the anti-robocall league recently established to coordinate the battle against these scammers.
