The FCC proposes requiring robocallers to disclose when they’re using AI

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed a new set of rules this week that would require robocallers to disclose when they’re using artificial intelligence for phone calls and text messages.

The proposal builds on the FCC’s ban on making AI-generated robocalls without the express prior consent of the person being called. The agency now hopes to require callers to say, while seeking that consent, whether they plan to use AI for future calls and messages, the FCC writes. Similar disclosures would have to be added to any AI-generated phone calls, which the agency says “contain an enhanced risk of fraud and other scams.”

The regulator suggests defining an “AI generated call” as any that uses technology to create “an artificial or prerecorded voice or a 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 over an outbound telephone call.”

Finally the agency hopes to carve out an exception for when those with speech and hearing disabilities use AI-generated voice software to help them communicate on outbound phone calls. The FCC would also require that there be no “unsolicited advertisement” in such calls, and that people on the receiving end of the phone calls not be charged for them. The agency asked for specific comments on whether scammers could abuse the exemption, and how it could update its rules to prevent that.