North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein is asking federal regulators to restrict telemarketers from using artificial intelligence during calls.
Stein said one risk is that AI gives scam callers a new tool to barrage North Carolinians with robocalls.
In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, Stein said marketers who want to use artificial intelligence to impersonate a human voice should be required to follow the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a law that requires advanced consent to receive telemarketing calls. With respect to artificial voices and AI marketing, Stein and 25 other state attorneys general say companies ought to get the same written consent from the people they call, according to the letter sent to the FCC.
This announcement comes after the New Hampshire attorney general’s office began investigating reports of an apparent robocall that used AI to mimic President Joe Biden’s voice and discourage voters from casting a ballot in the primary election.
That AI call showed up on recipients' caller ID showed the personal phone number for Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire state Democratic Party chair and who helps run a super-PAC supporting Biden's write-in campaign, according to the Associated Press.
