The FCC proposed a $6 million fine. For scammers who used voice cloning technology to impersonate President Biden in a series of illegal robocalls during the New Hampshire primary. Though this is more about robocalls than AI, authorities are clearly positioning this as a warning to other high-tech scammers.
As you may recall, in January many New Hampshire voters received phone calls purporting to be messages from the president telling them not to vote in the upcoming primary election. Of course, this was fake, a clone of President Biden’s voice using technology that has become widespread in recent years.
Creating a fake voice has been possible for some time, but AI generation platforms have made it easier. Dozens of services offer voice clones with little restriction or oversight. Of course, you can easily create your own Biden voice by listening to a minute or two of one of Biden’s speeches, which are easily found online.
Fake Biden calls cannot be used to suppress voters through robocalls, which are already illegal, as the FCC and multiple law enforcement agencies have made clear.
“We will act swiftly and decisively to prevent bad actors from exploiting America’s communications networks to misuse generative AI techniques to interfere in our elections, mislead consumers, or put sensitive data at risk,” FCC Enforcement Director Roian Egal said in a press release.
The main culprit was “political consultant” Steve Kramer, who also enlisted the help of the shady Life Corporation (previously accused of illegal robocalls) and the calling services of the shady telecommunications company Ringo (aka Americatel, aka Bullseyecom, aka Clear Choice Communications, aka Excel Telecommunications, aka Impact Telecom, aka Matrix Business Technologies, aka StarTech Global Communications, aka Trinsic Communications, aka Vertec Telecom).
While Cramer “clearly” violated several rules, no criminal charges have been brought against him or his associates to date. This is the limit of the FCC’s authority, and as a professional agency, the FCC must cooperate with local and federal law enforcement agencies to give weight to liability determinations.
The $6 million fine is close to the cap or target amount; as with the FTC and others, the actual amount paid is often much less for a variety of reasons, but it’s still a significant amount. The next step is for Cramer to respond to the allegations, but there are other actions being taken against Lingo (or whatever they’re calling themselves now that they’ve been arrested again) that could lead to fines and/or license revocation.
In the wake of these incidents, questions arose as to whether AI-generated voices were “synthetic” and, after the FCC quite wisely determined that AI-generated voices were, the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls was officially declared illegal in February.
We’re starting an AI newsletter! Sign up here They’ll start arriving in your inbox on June 5th.