FCC Takes Aim At AI Deepfake Robocalls After Sloppy Fake Biden Hoax

Last month you probably saw the story about how somebody used a (sloppy) deepfake of Joe Biden in a bid to try and trick voters into staying home during the Presidential Primary. It wasn't particularly well done; nor was it clear it reached all that many people or had much of an actual impact.

But the threat clearly spooked folks at the FCC, who very quickly have announced new rules imposing harsher penalties on those that use AI-generated deep fake robocalls to engage in political ratfuckery. According to the FCC's announcement, it's proposing a new rule declaring such calls illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which it already uses to combat robocalls:

AI-generated voice cloning and images are already sowing confusion by tricking consumers
into thinking scams and frauds are legitimate. No matter what celebrity or politician you favor, or what your relationship is with your kin when they call for help, it is possible we could all be a target of these faked calls," said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

That's why the FCC is taking steps to recognize this emerging technology as illegal under existing law, giving our partners at State Attorneys General offices across the country new tools they can use to crack down on these scams and protect consumers."

Since the FCC already uses the TCPA to combat robocalls, it's possible that the courts won't have any problem with the agency's efforts here. Then again it's possible that the courts view this as a too big of a stretch for the agency, especially given the looming Supreme Court decisions designed to eliminate precisely this kind of independent, expertise-driven, regulatory interpretation of existing law.

That said, the FCC doesn't have a particularly great track record of enforcement anyway, and like most U.S. regulatory agencies, consistently finds itself increasingly boxed in by court and congressional corruption.

What usually happens (you can see this play out with FCC robocall enforcement pretty clearly) is the FCC will try to pass some rules with the dwindling authority it has left after a generation of corporate legal assault. Then lobbying ensures whatever rules get passed get watered down further so they don't apply to anybody but the dodgiest velour tracksuit wearing scammers operating out of strip malls.

The rules then aren't consistently enforced anyway, and when enforcement does happen, the fines are usually relatively tiny and often not collected. That said, if somebody gets the bright idea to fool voters in some spectacular way, the agency will make an example of them (see: Wohl, Burkman), but this isn't an agency that has the staff, courage, or funding to police this stuff at any scale. Decades of lobbying by the corporations it used to regulate have made absolutely sure of it.