ABA Comment to FCC re: NPRM on Artificial Intelligence

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

The American Bankers Association (ABA) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry (Proposal) in the above-captioned proceeding. In the Proposal, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) proposes to require callers making calls using an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated voice or text to obtain the consumer’s specific, prior consent to receive AI-generated calls and to provide a disclosure at the beginning of a call that uses an AI-generated voice.

ABA supports the Commission's efforts to eliminate illegal automated calls, including calls that use artificial intelligence to defraud or deceive the consumer, as the Commission implements President Biden's direction that the agency engage in rulemaking or other policymaking to combat illegal calls and text messages that are "facilitated or exacerbated" by AI. Voice calls (and text messages) that impersonate banks and other legitimate businesses – including through the use of artificial intelligence – cause tremendous harm to consumers and undermine businesses’ ability to communicate with their customers. ABA has been a strong proponent of regulatory proposals intended to curb these illegal practices, including the draft Report and Order (Order) that had been scheduled to be considered during the September 26 Open Meeting. That Order would take important steps to combat illegal calls and texts, and we urge the Commission to adopt it without delay.

We are concerned, however, that the Proposal could be interpreted as imposing new consent and disclosure requirements on a broad swath of consumer-benefitting calls placed by banks, including suspicious activity alerts, one-time passcode requests, and callbacks placed by the bank at the customer’s request.

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