The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has been very open about cracking down on the deceptive use of artificial intelligence (“AI”). They have issued Notice of Inquiry about the under of AI along with robocalls and robotexts. And they have even clarified that the use of AI generated voices are “artificial or prerecorded voices” and will be subject to TCPA restrictions.

But, now we have some ACTION around the use of AI and “deepfakes” from the FCC. Kind of.

The FCC announced that a proposed $6 million fine for apparent caller id spoofing and “apparently illegal robocalls made using deepfake, AI-generated voice cloning technology”.

According to the press release available here, Steve Kramer made “illegally spoofed and malicious robocalls” which used a fake audio recording of President Biden to tell voters not to vote in the New Hampshire primary. Mr. Kramer is alleged to be responsible for these calls and the FCC proposed the $6 million fine due to the violations of the Truth in Caller ID Act.

It feels like AI is being used for the headlines, because the real issue here is the spoofing.

The FCC brought a separate action against the voice service provider, Lingo Telecom, who transmitted the calls. The FCC claims that Lingo Telecom violated STIR/SHAKEN rules for “failing to utilize reasonable ‘Know Your Customer’ protocols to verify caller ID information in connection with Mr. Kramer’s illegal robocalls.”

Skepticism around the use of AI in the telecom space is not going away. And the FCC seems committed to further “its understanding and adjusting to the impacts of AI on robocalling and robotexting.”