FCC chair takes aim at deepfakes, broadband competition

Rosenworcel, who has been an FCC commissioner off and on since 2012 and chairwoman since 2021, said she believes the agency also has an important role to play in the dawning artificial-intelligence age. At a recent event in Berkeley sponsored by the UC Berkeley School of Law, she discussed how the agency is using its continuing oversight of the nation’s telephone and broadcast networks to fight deepfakes.

Earlier this year, for example, the FCC fined and helped state officials bring charges against a political operative who allegedly commissioned a series of robocalls in New Hampshire in which an AI-generated simulation of President Joe Biden’s voice urged people not to vote.

The Examiner spoke with Rosenworcel about the agency’s approach to deepfakes, the state of broadband competition, the rollout of 5G wireless services and modernizing the laws undergirding the agency’s authority. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You were just talking about what the FCC can do about AI and deepfakes. What are the limits of the FCC’s authority? What are the boundaries of that? Well, the boundaries are always the law itself. And as we deal with this new technology, there’s a lot of ways in which we’re going to have to figure out how old laws apply. In this context, our first real episode was the New Hampshire call with President Biden; it was a warning shot.

We worked with a bunch of state attorneys general to conclude the Telephone Consumer Protection Act applies. It’s a law from 1991, but it deals with artificial and prerecorded voices, and AI voice-cloning technology is an artificial and pre-recorded voice.

We also decided to have a broader rulemaking to suggest that if you’re using AI technology in robocalls or robotext, you’re going to have to disclose it. And then we moved on to think about campaign advertisements, which the Communications Act has overseen through our authority over broadcasting.

So many campaign advertisements are still on radio and television. And every single campaign advertisement gets memorialized in a broadcaster’s public [FCC] file, identifying who paid for it and when it ran. So if we can add to that information about whether voice cloning, video or image manipulation is used, I think that’s a good thing.

What we’re really trying to do is develop a legal and social norm that when this technology is being used, you should expect to be told.

But if, instead of using the phone networks, they had used Zoom, say, or put videos on YouTube, would the FCC have authority? When it comes to campaign advertisements, there’s a whole world online that’s outside of our purview. But my thinking about it is this: Waiting for a law that’s perfect, that captures every platform and venue is waiting too long. So let’s start with the laws we have, and with a principle we can organize around. And to me, that principle is transparency.

Over the last 20 years, so much of our communications has shifted online. Does the Communications Act need to be revised to reflect that? I think we can always benefit from the update of our laws in ways that reflect current technology.

When I look at the Communications Act, I see principles of competition, universal access, public safety and consumer protection. Those values have stood the test of time. So how do we take this law and make sure it meets this moment?

How would you assess the state of broadband competition today? Oh, we need more.

What can the FCC do to encourage that? Broadband is no longer nice to have. It’s a need-to-have for everyone everywhere. And every community is stronger if we connect every household, and the economies in those communities are often stronger when they have broadband choice.

Some of that choice is going to come from networks that are in the ground. Some of it could come from fixed-wireless services. Some of it might come from satellites in the skies. I think we have to look to a multimodal world of competition in the future.

It’s starting to develop. For instance, the emergence of fixed-wireless systems, I think, is providing some real competitive pressure on a lot of incumbent broadband providers today.

Do you see that as a true alternative to landline broadband? The numbers suggest it is. A lot of households are signing up.

How would you assess the state of the 5G rollout, and where are we in thinking about and preparing for the 6G rollout? I think that we’re doing terrific in the United States when it comes to 5G rollout. We made extraordinary progress, and at the FCC, we started something called the 5G Fund to make sure that this infrastructure gets to rural areas where the economics are harder, so that we can support its deployment everywhere.

That being said, we need some new use cases for 5G. Having higher speeds and lower latencies is terrific. The question is, what more can we do with wireless besides send it to our smartphones?

What do you see as promising? I think we’re going to see more activities in the Internet of Things, more monitoring of industrial equipment, opportunities for smarter cities and smarter services. But those business models are still developing — not just here, but around the world.

There’s a lot of conversations I’m in about 6G, but to me, 6G is really not about the next generation of technology. It’s when we get to a point where we’re capacity constrained on 5G and need to start thinking about what new technologies can assist us with the new loads.

When do you think we’ll start seeing that rolled out? If you go back and look at history, you’ll find that about every 10 years, we get a new generational wireless service. It’s a model that almost holds. So, I would say by 2030.

You opposed the Sprint-T-Mobile merger on competition grounds. Do you see a need to open up more wireless competition, and what can the FCC do about that? One of the challenges of what you’re talking about is something you might not be aware of.

The FCC had, for 30 years, auction authority, which allowed us to repurpose airwaves from federal use for new mobile-commercial use and hold auctions. A tremendous tool. Over 30 years, we raised like $233 billion for the U.S. Treasury. It helped us really lead the world in 4G and 5G wireless services. It’s not an accident that our wireless networks are strong and that the application economy developed here on our shores and the smartphone universe.

But Congress has not reauthorized that authority, which is a challenge, because we’re going to need new airwaves for 6G and what comes beyond. And it takes some time to plan for those airwaves, repurpose them for commercial use.

We’re going to need Congress to reinstate that authority. So that’s a challenge that’s coming; it informs everything you just asked about.

Your term ends next year. Assuming Kamala Harris wins, would you stay on, if you were asked? Let’s see how the election goes.

If you have a tip about tech, startups or the venture industry, contact Troy Wolverton at twolverton@sfexaminer.com or via text or Signal at 415.515.5594.If you have a tip about tech, startups or the venture industry, contact Troy Wolverton at twolverton@sfexaminer.com or via text or Signal at 415.515.5594.