The Federal Communications Fee (FCC) and the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) announce new voice dialing and calling initiatives
FCC Discover of Inquiry
The FCC’s Discover of Inquiry (“NOI”) focuses on the usage of AI applied sciences within the context of unsolicited telephone calls and textual content messages which are unlawful below the Phone Shopper Safety Act (“TCPA”). Most significantly, by means of the NOI, the FCC seeks to know not solely the potential dangers related to AI, but additionally the potential advantages of AI within the communications sector.
The first focus of the NOI is to gather info to outline the time period “synthetic intelligence” for functions of the TCPA. Arriving at a transparent definition shall be a vital step in focusing any dialogue relating to the usage of AI on this context. The NOI units forth a variety of related statutory definitions of synthetic intelligence and associated phrases and seeks to establish any further info that the FCC should take into account when defining the time period for functions of the TCPA. The FCC is particularly within the interplay between AI and the TCPA’s current prohibition on “synthetic” voice messages. The FCC particularly questions “the potential potential of AI applied sciences to behave because the equal of a stay agent when interacting with shoppers.”
Relatedly, the FCC is looking for to establish the potential advantages of synthetic intelligence applied sciences to guard shoppers from undesirable and unlawful robocalls and texts. The FCC’s questions on this context take into account potential instruments for figuring out and screening calls, in addition to new instruments callers can use to raised goal their calls to particular demographics.
Lastly, the FCC is looking for enter relating to the potential legal responsibility of AI builders who design communication techniques in a means that allows or promotes violations of the TCPA. Controlling legal responsibility relating to the implementation and use of AI techniques will doubtless be one of many essential TCPA compliance points going ahead.
The whole NOI and FCC checklist of questions will be discovered right here. Feedback are due by December 18, 2023.
FTC Audio Replica Problem.
On the identical day, the FTC introduced the Voice Replica Problem to handle current and rising harms of synthetic intelligence or AI-enabled voice replica applied sciences. The Voice Cloning Problem is broader when in comparison with the FCC’s Nation of Islam (NOI) Problem, specializing in the potential dangers and advantages of AI voice cloning methods within the context of the FTC Rule, the Telemarketing Gross sales Rule, and the Proposed Impersonation (Proposed by the Federal Commerce Fee) to fight scams that impersonate authorities and companies, permitting for money restoration and civil penalties towards fraudsters). The Sound Replica Problem is designed to encourage the event of multidisciplinary approaches aimed toward stopping, monitoring and evaluating dangerous sound replica.
Full guidelines for the problem can be found right here. Submissions should tackle at the very least one in all three “intervention factors”: (1) blocking or validating; (2) real-time detection or monitoring; and (3) post-use analysis. The Federal Commerce Fee has established submitting pointers and timelines, which can be found right here. The primary prize winner will obtain $25,000, with further runner-up prizes and three honorable point out awards. Closing functions have to be submitted between January 2, 2024 and January 12, 2024.
