At the November 2023 FCC monthly meeting, the FCC approved the release of Notice of Inquiry related to the impact of AI-generated calls. The press referred to this effort as an attempt to stop AI-generated nuisance robocalls, but the investigation covers a lot of other issues.
The FCC is currently bound by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that Congress passed in 1991 that prohibited “any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party” unless a statutory exception applies or the call is exempted by ruling or order from the FCC. Subsequent to that order, the FCC determined that the rule applies to both calls and texts.
When that law was passed, the majority of the complaints received at the FCC were from consumers complaining about junk calls. The volume of junk calls is greater today than in 1991, but most people have learned how to deal with or ignore such calls.
Unfortunately, the FCC can’t just decide that all calls involving computer-generated voices are illegal. One of the big promises of AI is that customer service departments will be able to use AI to provide better customer service. On an inbound basis, AI can be used to eliminate the dreaded “If you are calling for X, press 1… for Y, press 2”. AI can instead direct a call to the right person by listening to what customers are seeking.
More troublesome for the FCC is that AI can also be used to send calls or texts to customers to answer specific customer questions. There are businesses that have already converted inbound customer service to AI, and it’s inevitable that AI will be used for outbound calls and sales.
One of the challenges faced by the FCC and all government agencies is how to define AI to distinguish it from uses of technology that are not AI. The National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 defined AI as “a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions.” The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defined AI as “the capability of a device to perform functions that are normally associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning, and self-improvement.” Those definitions are talking about AI that is a lot more advanced than what is needed to place calls to people.
When Congress enacted the TCPA, it concluded that artificial and prerecorded voice messages constituted a greater nuisance to consumers than calls with live persons. The FCC is left with the unenviable task of deciding if AI calls are a nuisance if the AI call can interface with people in the same manner as a live person by responding to questions. How will people even know they are talking to an AI-generated voice?
One of the particularly troubling aspects of AI is that the technology is going to be able to generate a voice that is tailored to each called party. The AI caller can mimic the accent, slang, and other language characteristics that will make it feel comfortable to callers. AI could even creepily mimic somebody a person knows, gaining instant credibility. AI seems like a particularly powerful tool in the hands of scammers.
I think one thing is almost guaranteed – AI scammers will quickly find a way around any specific rules formulated by the FCC. AI can be used to develop calling strategies that sidestep specific regulations. It’s going to be interesting to see what the FCC develops. The first generation rules are almost sure to be inadequate, and this is a topic that is going to have to be continually revisited to keep up with changing technology and determined hackers.
Unfortunately, the major reasons that electronic receptionists, auto-dialers and robo-caller technologies work is because their cost is de minimus. As much as customers detest them, vendors prefer their cost versus having to hire, train and employ real people.
Hiring real Americans for these jobs is apparently too expensive… these companies would rather overpay their senior executives, than to pay lower-level employees a living wage. That is not a fact unique to the telecom industry, it is a fact throughout the American economy.
So… along comes AI. This a totally brand new technology, and as with all new technologies, the rules and guardrails have not been developed. It is going to be synonymous to the “Wild West” out there… until the FCC and PUCs gain an understanding of the parameters, and who or what needs protecting and when. Tangentially, the FCC and PUCs can only govern the industry domestically. One very easy way for vendors avoid these rules is to move their operations outside of the US.
Beyond the FCC, it is ultimately the job of Congress to set the guardrails for the FCC and the rest of the industry. And we all know how well those folks are working these days.
By the way, playing with automatic callers and ACD systems can be fun!! The robocalls for customer service, and from groups seeking donations, often have pre-determined scripts that the computers follow.
1) Providing an answer that is off-script or out-of-scope always sends the computer into a tizzy… “Maybe” or “I am me” is a preferential answer to “Yes,” since illegal operaters have been known to record that word and apply it to the purchase of whatever scam they are pushing. Be careful!!
I admittedly have little patience for electronic receptionist scripts, especially those that offer a live operator as the last option buried in a litany of awful/useless choices. If I am calling customer service, I am calling because the issue can not be fixed by interaction with the computer system and to have to listen to the script is torture. The option of a live operator SHOULD BE OFFERED FIRST!!
2) Answering the auto-dialer or robocall by clearing your throat can also confuse the computer, and will on occasion quickly shut down the call.
3) According to Federal law, if a called party asks the autodialer or telemarketing representative to “take my phone number off your list”, they presumably have to do so. Some rightly do so; some do not. The preceived problem here is that the calling vendor then adds your phone number to a bank of legit. phone numbers, and sells it to other calling systems (… giving you more calls, not less!).
near zero cost is indeed the core of the issue. simply put, make it have a cost. When a spam call is identified, allow the user to flag it as such (star code maybe?) and trigger a backcharge to the provider. I’m sure that’ll pass down to the offender pretty quick and at least burn up time appealing it.
The reason your junk snail mail only fills your mailbox is that there’s a real cost, if it were near free you’d be getting your junk mail delivered by UPS and it’d take an entire truck per home.
BTW, I have a method for reducing junk snail mail…
Return the “business reply” envelope with lots of inserts (from an electric bill, other junk mail…) and a note on their form to… “Please take me off your mailing list”.
You know, it works!! Business reply mail is expensive to get returned — when it comes back with loads of junk, they listen!!
so yeah, I’m basically suggesting a similar ‘spite’ return. You get a spam call, just dial *666 or whatever and that charges their carrier a spam call fee.
However, this model basic requires effort on the end users, how many business reply envelopes are you willing to stuff? I’d like it to feel a bit more automated and/or have the back charge get paid to the end user that was inconvenienced.
Again, the junk mail has a cost so there are practical limits to how much you can really get, there’s no real limit to spam calls.