A bipartisan panel of government campaign finance regulators voted Thursday to abandon new rulemaking on artificial intelligence, saying they lack the authority to limit or ban the use of the technology while it is still in development in federal elections.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit watchdog group asked In May 2023, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) ordered that existing prohibitions on fraudulent misrepresentation of election rights be amended to clarify that they prohibit knowingly deceptive election ads using AI.
The FEC approved it by a 5-1 vote. compromise The bill, authored by Democratic Commissioners Dara Lindenbaum and Shanna Broussard and Republican Commissioners Trey Traynor and Allen Dickerson, would issue an interpretive rulemaking clarifying that AI is subject to existing regulations prohibiting fraudulent misrepresentations.
“The four of us have been working together to provide a clear answer to the public and to the petitioners who have asked whether our law applies to artificial intelligence used to commit fraudulent misrepresentations, generative AI, and we have answered that it does, because the law is technology-neutral,” Lindenbaum said.
Lindenbaum also called this “one of those times when the FEC worked well,” in what appeared to be a rebuttal to common criticism that the commission has long been gridlocked and dysfunctional.
The FEC is made up of six commissioners — three Republicans and three Democrats — who need a majority vote to issue new rules, advisory opinions or launch investigations. Over the years, that has proven difficult, especially when not all the commission seats are filled.
Lindenbaum, along with Republican committee members, sometimes voted for advisory opinions that angered good government groups and reached out to the other side of the Legislature. Supporting the deregulation agenda.
Robert Weissman, Co-chairman of Public Citizen Criticized The agency's decision not to enact new rules after the interpretive rule language was released last week.
“[T]”The weakened FEC appears to have forgotten its purpose and mission — or rather, its spine,” Weissman said in a statement.
“The FEC's new proposed 'interpretive rule' simply says that the fraudulent misrepresentation statute applies no matter what technology is used. This resolves an issue that has never been questioned before,” Weissman continued, but noted that the new language “leaves doubts, at least for future petitions.”
FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey, who cast the lone dissenting vote, had pushed through an initial draft in August that rejected any new rulemaking that did not include interpretive provisions.
The commission postponed its response to the rulemaking petition twice before Thursday's meeting, during which time the four commissioners worked together to craft the interpretation that was ultimately adopted.
Cooksey A scathing editorial Writing in the Wall Street Journal in August, he argued that the commission “has neither the expertise nor the legal authority” to regulate AI, and that other agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), agree. Criticized It pursued proposals to require political advertisers to disclose their use of AI in television and radio ads.
Cooksey also expressed concern Thursday that the new guidance could cause confusion with less than seven weeks until the November election.
“I worry that this bill could be misconstrued and misinterpreted and have a chilling effect on people who think it's banning new things, when in fact it's not,” Cooksey said.
“We're not changing any rules, any regulations or the substance of any law. Something that's not already illegal won't become illegal tomorrow because of this rule of interpretation,” he said.
