The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a new set of rules This week, robocallers will be required to disclose when they are using artificial intelligence for phone calls and text messages.
The proposal builds on the FCC's ban on ai-generated robocalls without the express prior consent of the person being called. The agency now hopes to require callers to indicate, while seeking that consent, whether they plan to use ai for future calls and messages, the The FCC writesSimilar information would need to be added to any phone calls generated by artificial intelligence, which the agency says “contain a higher risk of fraud and other scams.”
The regulator suggests define an “ai-generated call” as any call that uses technology to create “an artificial or prerecorded voice or text using computational technology or other machine learning, including predictive algorithms and large language models, to process natural language and produce voice or text content to communicate with a called party via an outgoing telephone call.”
Finally, the agency hopes to create an exception for cases where people with hearing or speech disabilities use ai-generated voice software to help them communicate on outgoing phone calls. The FCC would also require that there be no “unsolicited advertising” on such calls and that call recipients not be charged for them. The agency asked for specific comment on whether scammers could abuse the exemption and how it might update its rules to prevent that.
