The FCC has proposed requiring robocallers to disclose if they use AI.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) New set of rules This week, robocallers will have to disclose if they use artificial intelligence to make phone calls or send text messages.

The proposal builds on FCC rules that prohibit AI-generated robocalls without the caller’s explicit, prior consent. The agency now wants to require callers to state whether they plan to use AI in future calls and messages while seeking consent. The FCC notes:. Similar disclosures should be added to all AI-generated phone calls, which the agency says “increases the risk of fraud and other scams.”

Regulator propose We define “AI-generated calls” as technologies that “use computational techniques or other machine learning (including predictive algorithms and large-scale language models) to generate artificial or pre-recorded speech or text, process natural language, and generate speech or text content to communicate with the caller via an outgoing telephone call.”

Finally, the agency wants to create an exception for AI-generated voice software to help people with speech and hearing disabilities communicate on outgoing calls. The FCC will also require that these calls be free of “unsolicited advertising” and not charge the recipient a fee. The agency is asking for specific comments on whether scammers could abuse the exemption and how the rules could be updated to prevent this.