The rise of ai-generated voices imitating celebrities and politicians could make it even harder for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fight robocalls and prevent people from being targeted by spam and scams. That's why FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wants the commission to officially recognize calls that use ai-generated voices as “artificial,” which would make the use of voice cloning technologies in robocalls illegal. Under the FCC's Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), solicitations to residences that use an artificial voice or recording are illegal. As ai-generated-robocalls/” data-ylk=”slk:TechCrunch;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>TechCrunch notes, the ai-voice-generated-robocalls-illegal” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-ylk=”slk:FCC’s proposal;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas” class=”link “>The FCC proposal. will make it easier to pursue and charge bad actors.
“ai-generated voice cloning and images are already sowing confusion by misleading consumers into thinking scams and frauds are legitimate,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “No matter which celebrity or politician you prefer, or what your relationship is with your family members when they ask for help, we may all be the target of these fake calls.” If the FCC recognizes that ai-generated voice calls are illegal under existing law, the agency can provide state attorneys general offices across the country with “new tools they can use to combat… scams and protect to customers”.
The FCC proposal comes shortly after some New Hampshire residents received a call posing as President Joe Biden, telling them not to vote in their state's primary. A security company conducted a thorough analysis of the call and determined that it was created using artificial intelligence tools by a startup called ElevenLabs. The company had reportedly banned the account responsible for the message impersonating the president, but the incident could end up being just one of many attempts to disrupt the upcoming US election using ai-generated content.
