ter communication or misleading messages?

The Club for Growth, a right-leaning economic policy group seeking the change, said it could help political organizations better communicate with potential voters, including in more languages, and improve polling accuracy by helping groups reach more voters. It calls current federal rules outdated and argues they dampen freedom of speech.

The nation's communications regulatory body would have to act within a compressed schedule to grant the waiver in time to affect the midterm elections. Critics said it wouldn't be the first time the FCC, which has become closely aligned with the president during his second term, has bypassed procedural norms to serve its political agenda.

Its Republican chairman, Brendan Carr, launched an unusual early review of broadcast licenses for several ABC-owned local broadcast stations, prompting the company to sue. It said the review years ahead of schedule was unconstitutional, a violation of free speech and a retaliation for content Trump dislikes.

The FCC didn't respond to a request for comment on the petition.

Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat among the FCC's three active commissioners, told The Associated Press she opposes the move and thinks it would create  a tsunami of robocalls and misinformation. 

 We've already seen dark money groups use AI to put candidates' likeness behind inflammatory comments ahead of this election,  Gomez said.  Exempting political calls from the need for consumer consent would supercharge that strategy, and misleading messages could land directly on the handheld phone of nearly every voter in our country. 

Political robocalls have caused controversies before

In past elections, deceptive political robocalls have resulted in significant fines associated with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the federal law at the center of the petition.

In 2020, tens of thousands of prospective voters in majority-Black areas of the U.S. received robocalls falsely warning that if they voted by mail, they could face arrest and debt collection.

The two conservative hoaxers behind the calls, Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, were criminally charged for the calls and fined some $5.1 million for violating the act.

The political consultant behind the 2024 New Hampshire robocalls mimicking Biden's voice said he did it to send a wake-up call about the potential dangers of AI. He was acquitted of criminal voter suppression charges but faced fines and civil damages associated with federal law.

Shortly after the New Hampshire robocall caught authorities' attention, the FCC ruled that robocalls made with AI voice-cloning tools were outlawed under the consumer protection act.

The change could boost various types of AI calling

If the commission pivots to grant the Club for Growth's petition, political groups of all stripes could amp up their use of AI to prerecord messages that play when voters pick up the phone. They also could use the technology to engage in live conversations with voters driven by AI large language models.

Mekela Panditharatne, senior counsel in the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, warned that such conversations hold risks. An AI system could make false promises about a candidate or manipulate voters in conversation by providing inaccurate or incomplete information.

Harper, from the Center for Democracy and Technology, said there also could be a privacy risk for voters who might not know how an AI agent on the line with them is capturing or repurposing their data.

The Club for Growth has argued the waiver would help create a more uniform regulatory landscape, given that unsolicited automated calls to landlines are already allowed. If the waiver is granted, callers would still be limited by certain conditions, including allowing consumers to opt out and making no more than three calls within 30 days to each individual recipient.

A public comment reply period on the petition ends Oct. 19, at which point the FCC could move forward on a decision.

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This story has been corrected to show the FCC commissioner's name is Anna Gomez, not Ana Gomez.