POLITICAL AI APOCALYPSE?: FCC Appears Close to Unleashing an Army of Political Ai Bots on American Cell Phones– Let’s Hope That Doesn’t Happen

2 Comments

Law Conference of Champions V ticket price as I type: $279.00 (and rising).

The FCC appears set to unleash an army of political AI bots on America’s cell phone numbers and this feels like a terrible idea.

People hate unsolicited political messaging as it. But an organization called Club for Growth wants to make the problem much worse. The organization is asking the FCC to make it legal for politicians and PACs to send UNCONSENTED GenAI slop voice calls for political purposes to cellular phones.

Eesh. What a terrible idea.

But it appears the FCC may go for it.

In a petition for Expedited Waiver filed by Club For Growth back in August the organization requests the FCC to clarify that politicians can use GenAI to attack..er, call.. consumer CELL PHONES without consent.

The Petition’s argument goes something like this… these calls are allowed to landlines so  they should be allowed to cell phones. Plus the TCPA was intended to stop marketing calls– not political calls–so let the political GenAI off the leash!

Not good.

In fairness, however, the petition does seek limits to GenAi to cell phones that would align with TRACED Act limitations on non-marketing speech to landlines. So, there’s that.

But giving political organizations a free pass to use GenAi to contact cell phones in the first place feels like an awful idea and one that is certain to be abused.

What bothers me though is that the FCC seems to be giving this real consideration.  The Commission sought comment on this petition within days of it being submitted– meaning it may have momentum. (By contrast the Commission still has not issued a Public Notice on the CRITICAL R.E.A.C.H. petition designed to stop illegal call blocking and labeling and restore sanity to the telecoms.)

The initial comment period already ran–and the reply comment period is up in a week– so the FCC may literally greenlight random-fire GenAI political speech ahead of the midterms.

God help us all.

Brace yourselves folks, the rise of the AI political bot machine army may be near at hand.

We’ll keep an eye on this.

And you need to keep an eye on Law Conference of Champions V ticket prices because they are rising $10.00 each day!  Tickets are only $279.00 today but rising daily– so buy now and save a ton!

Chat soon.

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Published by Eric "Czar" Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

2 Comments

  1. There are so many pending important requests for declaratory rulings, including those flied by Dobronski and others, related to clarifications surrounding the TCPA. There are competing requests to open proceedings, including the LNPA (Somos petition to streamline and eliminate the NAPM LLC), and iConectiv’s petition to open up SMS/800 for competitive bidding.

    What’s the point though, if the courts aren’t lending much deference to the FCC anyway?

    Perhaps that is the right avenue – a congressional fix – that would set some intentionality about this… rather than the FCC, which may rule all it wants, but where little, if any, weight is given.

    Isn’t that a better venue for thta? There are, aftert all, a couple of competing bills in the senate and congress, at this point, that would add clarification to – or could add clarification – to the applicability of the TCPA to political calls.

    But in the public sentiment, this issue has been already fully adjudicated – people don’t want AI generated political calls.

    Reply

  2. Thanks for posting this Eric!

    So this should prove interesting to see how FCC rules, as this is notably the first time (I’ve ever seen) that the consumers posting ‘do not’s’ outnumber the corporate ‘dos’ by about 200-1 (!!) in the already posted comments.

    Here’s a link to see them: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings

    Better yet here’s the link to post your own feelings: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express

    ****Note in each case enter: 02-278 in the ‘proceedings’ ****

    But wait, didn’t the FCC already address this issue back in 2024* when the infamous Biden voice clone attempt to mislead and disenfranchise voters was revealed?!?!?

    “The robocalls, made two days prior to the election, used a deepfake of President Biden’s voice and encouraged voters to not vote in the primary but rather to ‘save your vote for the November election.’” https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-402762A1.pdf

    *Why yes they did: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-400393A1.pdf

    Correct me if I’m wrong but this sounds like they want to open the floodgates to this exact same type of b*lls**t!! If this doesn’t warrant comments from both sides of the TCPA divide I’m not sure what would… cough ‘R.E.A.C.H.’ cough….

    Oh, and here’s link to the Club for Growth Expedited Waiver Petition: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/26110073991/1

    “The calling parties plan to make calls to seek input from and to deliver important information to potential voters in the lead-up to the midterm elections held on November 3, 2026, the Club requests expedited action on this Petition.”

    Wow, cool new commenting tools available! All we need now is ability to add images 😉

    Reply

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