The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has put forward requirements for publishing AI-generated content in political ads, but has not banned it.
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel on Wednesday publicly proposed that the FCC study and seek comment on such a rule. (The FCC has already made robocalls made by AI illegal, but the problem was not so much the AI part but the fact that they violated automated call rules.)
“Consumers have a right to know when AI tools are being used in the political ads they see, and we want them to.” [the commissioners] We will act swiftly on this issue,” she said in a statement accompanying the announcement.
Under the envisioned framework, both candidate and issue ads would have to include on-air and filed disclosures that AI-generated content was used. This would apply to “cable operators, satellite television and radio providers,” but not to streamers or, for example, YouTube, which the FCC has no legal authority to regulate. First, a definition of AI-generated content would need to be agreed upon.
The proposal is fact-finding and marks the first public step in developing new regulations. If adopted, the FCC would seek comment on whether regulations are needed at all, how they should be defined, etc. Unlike rulemaking documents, these can be voted on at any time, so it's possible, though unlikely, that other commissioners could vote in favor before adjourning Wednesday.
The FCC document states the Commission's “clear public interest obligation to its licensees, regulators and permittees to protect the public from false, misleading or deceptive programming and to promote the dissemination of public knowledge.”
Certainly, it seems intuitively correct that most people would want some kind of indication if images, audio, or other things in election ads were generated by AI. Such regulation would presumably help thwart low-effort attempts to do so and lay the groundwork for pursuing bad actors, like the shady company behind the fake Biden phone calls.
I asked the FCC for a bit more information about where the rules would overlap or interact with those of the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Election Commission (which regulate advertising and campaigns, respectively), and when, at the earliest, the proposal could go into effect.