FCC bans AI voices in robocalls

[beschizza]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/02/09/fcc-bans-ai-voices-in-robocalls.html

…

[anon94804983]

All robocalls need banning.

ETA: Although…

@RickMycroft

Unsolicited ones, yeah.

Some doctor’s offices use them for appointments, and local charities for donation pickup reminders.

that is an XLNT point. But so is this:

@sqlrob

They also really, really need to tighten down on what “unsolicited” means too.

I get robocalls from the pharmacy saying I can get my prescriptions in 3 month blocks.

I got one prescription there over a year ago. It was unrefillable. And for a month.

[Scurra]

I fear our media does not have the perspective and willingness to plainly describe the nastiness on the way.

That feels like an understatement, especially given how credulous the media have been about (not)AI thus far - so the reporting is liable to continue to be breathless excitement that this is possible rather than outrage that it is happening.

[gracchus]

Thanks to the FCC for doing what they should have done proactively, I guess. It’s not like AI deep fake voice scams have been unknown problems in regular scams. Nor is it a novel idea that political [read Republican] ratf*ckers use every item in the scammer’s toolbox.

@beschizza

I fear our media does not have the perspective and willingness to plainly describe the nastiness on the way.

It’s more a matter of a lack of courage and a self-interested pretense that the system still works as it did during the post-war economic anomaly. As I said elsewhere:

@gracchus

The only other choice is for the corporate media to admit that something is very wrong and broken with democracy in America, and they’re not going to say that outright. The best I can see is them continuing to dance around it, wringing their hands over incidents like this but still depicting them as outliers rather than the state of the modern GOP.

[RickMycroft]

Unsolicited ones, yeah.

Some doctor’s offices use them for appointments, and local charities for donation pickup reminders.

[sqlrob]

They also really, really need to tighten down on what “unsolicited” means too.

I get robocalls from the pharmacy saying I can get my prescriptions in 3 month blocks.

I got one prescription there over a year ago. It was unrefillable. And for a month.

[danimagoo]

@gracchus

Thanks to the FCC for doing what they should have done proactively, I guess.

They kind of did, really. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, enacted in 1991, prohibits unsolicited calls that use an artificial or prerecorded voice. There are exceptions, of course, and companies violate this all the time, but it’s been the law since 1991. This current action by the FCC isn’t actually a new rule. All they did was declare that the use of newer AI technologies to create these voices is an artificial voice and falls under that prohibition of the TCPA. What we need is better enforcement of the TCPA, which sounds like the FCC is now trying to do. Anyway, here’s a link to the actual ruling by the FCC, for anyone interested.

FCC-24-17A1.pdf

[douglas_stuart]

Why is it always one paRty we hear about doing this shit?

[Ed_Beaty]

“Quick! Get Rich Little on the phone!”

[RickMycroft]

“I called him, but Richard Nixon answered.”

[Sludge]

Just a second while I try to connect you… (beeple-diii-bruk…)