Club for Growth asks the FCC to exempt AI-voice political calls from consent

Club for Growth filed a petition on August 31 seeking a limited waiver of 47 CFR § 64.1200(a)(1)(iii) and an exemption from 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii), which together would let callers place noncommercial political calls to wireless numbers with an artificial or prerecorded voice — “including an AI-generated voice” — without prior express consent. The Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau put it out for comment on September 4 in CG Docket No. 02-278 (DA 26-940), noting that although the filing is styled as a waiver request, it also seeks an exemption. Comments are due October 5, replies October 19.

The provision it targets is the one the Commission read onto AI voices in FCC 24-17, the February 8, 2024 declaratory ruling holding that voice-cloning technologies produce an “artificial” voice under the TCPA. The Commission adopted it on February 2, ten days after the New Hampshire primary, where a cloned recording of President Biden’s voice told Democrats not to vote.

The same public notice takes comment on a petition from Joe Shields, filed May 21, asking the Bureau to declare that a peer-to-peer texting system using “a perfunctory human being for the sole purpose of clicking on a ‘send’ or similarly termed button to transmit thousands of text messages per hour” is an autodialer under the TCPA.

Reply comments close October 19, about two weeks before the midterm election.

The filing-by-filing detail is in the Regulatory Watch dispatches as the comment cycle runs.