During a House Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) spoke about artificial intelligence-generated scam calls.
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00:00Thanks.
00:01Thank you, Mr. Alford.
00:03And I must admit, the chairman made me chuckle when he talked about rabbit ears.
00:06That brings me back as a kid standing in my backyard trying to catch the browns.
00:10Yeah, your dad yelling at you to try to move the rabbit ears around.
00:12Trying to catch the rabbit ears so he can catch the browns game from Erie, Pennsylvania.
00:16Yeah.
00:17Anyhow, the chair would like to recognize the vice chair of the committee, Mr. Lolota,
00:21for his five minutes of questions.
00:23Thank you, chairman.
00:23I appreciate the time.
00:24Chairman Carr, you're the head of the Federal Communications Commission.
00:28Yes, sir.
00:28And you've been at the FCC since about 2017?
00:31Commissioner, since 2017.
00:33I started as a staffer back in 2012.
00:35Did I read that you were nominated by presidents of both parties?
00:38It was by President Trump and President Biden.
00:40Great.
00:41And the FCC's jurisdiction covers wireless and wire communications,
00:46both including landlines and cellular phones?
00:48Yes, sir.
00:49And scam calls, fraudulent calls made with the intent to steal money, personal information,
00:56or both are under your purview, sir?
00:59That's right.
00:59We have a significant work stream going, including that we're always looking to expand that deals
01:04with robocalls, illegal robocalls, other types of spam.
01:07Other agencies, FTC as well, have a role here, but this is a big piece of what we do at the
01:11agency.
01:12I do want to talk about robocalls, but I first want to talk about AI-generated impersonation
01:17scams, which are becoming increasingly effective.
01:20My staff's research says that may those scams result in the loss of about $6,000 on average,
01:26where the traditional scam calls are about $539 on average.
01:30What types, Chairman, what types of AI scams are you seeing most commonly right now?
01:37So AI scams that come in two forms.
01:40One, AI as a technology can be used for actually generating these robocalls.
01:46Second, we're seeing AI used as the content on the robocall itself.
01:52The FCC at this point has made clear that the content of the robocall itself is not necessarily
01:58relevant to our determination, but the use of AI does constitute an artificial or pre-recorded
02:05voice, which is the regulation that allows us to regulate it as a robocall.
02:09Okay.
02:10What's the typical demographic targeted by these scam calls, and specifically the AI-generated
02:16calls?
02:16Do they skew older, younger, geographically?
02:20How would you describe the demographics of those who are targeted by these calls?
02:23I can look to get specifics on that.
02:25As a general matter, our sense is that the net is cast very, very widely.
02:28It may snag different people in different ways, but we can look more closely at some
02:34of that data.
02:35So my research, anecdotal and some more deeper, suggests that seniors are the ones being
02:41targeted more often.
02:42Do you agree with that instinct at least?
02:43Yeah, that would not surprise me at all.
02:45And what is the FCC doing about these AI-generated calls?
02:49Yeah, a couple things.
02:51One, we're always looking to strengthen our call blocking, our call authentication measures.
02:56We're working with the FTC.
02:58State attorney generals have also been involved, and we are issuing consumer advisories.
03:03When we see particular schemes that arise, we'll warn the relevant community about the
03:09contours of that scheme.
03:10Is the FCC equipped with the tools, the authorities it needs to properly combat this developing
03:16scam?
03:18Yeah, I'm comfortable right now in terms of where we are.
03:20I think we need to ramp our efforts up, but I don't think that's going to require significant
03:24new expenditures at this point.
03:26What can the committee and or Congress do to help you in this effort, Chairman?
03:30You know, we're right now doing a top-to-bottom review, and we'll come back to you if there's
03:33any gaps in our authorities that we need filled.
03:36Congress has been a great partner when there has been issues that arise, that we need additional
03:40authority providing that to us.
03:43One issue that we have always sort of looked at is on the enforcement side.
03:47The FTC doesn't have independent authority necessarily to go to court to block some of
03:51this, so let me take a look at that and see whether there's some fixes we might need there.
03:55Should you have that authority, in your opinion?
03:57Let me look and see how much of a block that's been, and then come back to you on that, and
04:02we'll get back to you on any broader reforms that we need as well.
04:04Okay, switching from the AI-generated calls to the robocalls, which are highly annoying
04:10to many of my constituents, how is the FCC working with telecom providers and law enforcement
04:15to stop robocallers at the source, especially those operating overseas?
04:20Yeah, one thing that we've done is we are continuing to grant carriers greater and greater
04:25leeway to block calls at the source, to block calls when they start.
04:29We're also putting a technology across the board called the stir-shake-in authentication
04:34framework to try to identify.
04:36We have a traceback consortium, so when we get a number, we now have the capacity to trace
04:41that number back to its origin.
04:43We've also been setting up a new process over these recent years where we are effectively
04:47forcing providers that are onboarding illegal robocalls to kick them off their network a lot
04:54faster, if they're not taking actions, then that provider itself, even though they're not
04:58a robocaller, they've enabled the robocalls, we're able to take action on them quickly as
05:02well.
05:02So we've just got to continue to ramp these efforts up.
05:04The FCC is inherently a domestic agency?
05:09Principally, but we do have, you know, a look at sort of international communications as well,
05:13and a lot of robocalls are coming from overseas, and there's been some challenges where we're upgrading
05:18our networks and our standards, but you can lose some of the identifying information when there's a
05:23handoff from abroad to the U.S., but we do work with our international counterparts on these issues.
05:29Generally speaking, Chairman, from where overseas are a lot of these scam calls coming?
05:33I think I'm from all over the place.
05:35India is one that originates a lot of these, but, you know, it can bounce around Eastern Europe as well.
05:40There's multiple sources of these calls.
05:42Thanks, Chairman.
05:43Hope we can stay in touch, and you let us know how this committee and Congress as a whole can help you
05:47with the tools, the authorities, the budget you need to help you do your job.
05:50Thank you so much.
05:50Thanks.
05:51I yield.