FCC Democrat Urges Rejection of AI Robocall Petition Ahead of Midterms

A Democratic commissioner on the United States Federal Communications Commission is pressing the agency to turn down a request that would permit political groups to deploy artificial intelligence-generated robocalls in the weeks leading up to November's midterm elections, warning that approval could unleash a wave of deception and harassment on American voters.

Anna Gomez, who has served as one of the FCC's five commissioners and has been a frequent dissenting voice during President Donald Trump's administration, made her concerns public on Wednesday as the agency's public comment window on the matter came to a close. She argued that allowing automated political calls crafted with AI voice technology would create dangerous conditions so near to Election Day.

"If the FCC allows a dark money group to flood Americans' phones with AI-generated robocalls they never agreed to receive, it would bring chaos so close to Election Day," Gomez told Reuters in an interview.

Speaking separately with The Associated Press, the commissioner said that eliminating the agency's consent requirement for such calls could produce a sharp increase in unwanted robocalls as well as the spread of false information. Representatives for Gomez did not respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera.

The dispute centers on a petition submitted on August 31 by the Club for Growth, a national conservative organization focused on fiscal policy. The group is asking the FCC to permit political organizations to place automated phone calls to individuals without obtaining their prior approval. In its filing, the group pledged to cap the volume of calls so that no person would receive more than three in a thirty-day period, and said recipients would be given a way to opt out.

The FCC opened the petition to public feedback on September 4. The deadline for submitting comments fell on Monday, and replies to those comments are not due until October 19. The commission has not yet indicated whether it will grant the request.

Robocalls have been a fixture of political campaigning in the United States for years, and the regulatory landscape is complex. Under existing FCC rules, automated calls to cellphones and pagers are prohibited unless the recipient has given prior express consent. Calls to landline telephones, by contrast, are generally allowed. The petition, if approved, would create an exception for political groups that would loosen those restrictions.

What makes the current debate different from earlier robocall controversies is the rapid maturation of AI voice technology. Modern AI systems can produce speech that sounds indistinguishable from a real human being, making it far easier for bad actors to impersonate public figures, family members or officials. That capability has fueled a surge in scams and fraud, prompting the FCC to act in February 2024, when it banned the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls outright. At the time, the agency stated that its action "now makes the act of using AI to generate the voice in these robocalls itself illegal."

The commissioner's warnings are grounded in recent experience. Before the 2024 New Hampshire primary, voters in the state received a robocall that used an AI-generated clone of President Joe Biden's voice instructing them not to cast ballots. The FCC identified political consultant Steve Kramer, who was working on behalf of long-shot primary challenger Dean Phillips, as the person responsible and said he could face as much as $6 million in fines. Kramer was later acquitted of voter suppression charges. The episode remains a widely cited example of how quickly synthetic audio can be weaponized during an election.

State legislatures have begun responding on their own. Louisiana, Tennessee and Vermont all passed laws this year requiring disclosure when campaign phone calls are generated by AI. More broadly, 25 states have enacted legislation since 2019 governing the use of AI-created material in elections, reflecting growing unease among policymakers at both ends of the political spectrum.

Public opinion appears to align with those concerns. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 57 percent of registered voters believe the Trump administration has not treated the risks posed by AI seriously enough. A slightly smaller share, 54 percent, said the same about congressional leadership, suggesting that voters see insufficient oversight from both the executive and legislative branches.

The White House has taken a different approach. Late last month, it convened executives from leading AI developers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Meta and Google, to sign a voluntary agreement committing the companies to stronger safeguards around their most advanced systems. Critics contend that the pact's non-binding character renders it largely symbolic.

"The White House Accord on Super Intelligence is 'morally binding' only, allowing AI companies to design their own controls, select their own evaluators, and determine whether their own procedures are being followed," wrote Tom Wheeler, a visiting fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution's Center for Technology Innovation. He added that voluntary commitments from technology firms have historically proven unreliable, noting that Facebook, Google and Twitter had all walked back or violated self-imposed standards in the past.

With the midterm elections now only weeks away, the FCC's eventual decision carries significant stakes. Approval of the Club for Growth petition would open a new channel for automated political messaging at precisely the moment when voters are most inundated with campaign communications, and critics fear the combination of AI voice cloning and relaxed consent rules could be exploited well beyond the limits the petitioners have promised. Rejection, meanwhile, would preserve the current restrictions and likely prompt further litigation or renewed lobbying from political organizations seeking access to automated calling.

For Gomez, the choice is clear. She has framed the petition as a test of whether the agency will safeguard voters from technological manipulation or allow political operatives to exploit a powerful new tool in the final stretch of an election season.