The order creates a Justice Department task force to challenge state AI laws and directs the Commerce Department to pull future broadband funding from states that pass "onerous" legislation. President Donald Trump signed a highly anticipated executive order on Thursday that sets in motion a plan to establish a national regulatory framework for artificial intelligence while undercutting states' abilities to enact their own rules. The order, titled "Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence," creates an AI litigation task force within the Justice Department to directly challenge state AI laws the administration finds to conflict with federal policy. It also directs the Department of Commerce to craft guidelines that could make states ineligible for future broadband funding if they pass "onerous" AI laws. The push for sweeping federal preemption of state AI laws has largely been fueled by AI investors, conservative policy shops, and tech industry trade groups.

FOX News' Eben Brown reports that with the use of AI, scammers are fleecing Americans in more sophisticated ways. The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday made AI-generated robocalls mimicking the voices of political candidates to fool voters illegal. With the unanimous adoption of a declaratory ruling that recognizes calls made with AI-generated voices are "artificial" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a 1991 law restricting junk calls that use artificial and prerecorded voice messages, the FCC said it was giving state attorneys general new tools to go after those responsible for voice cloning scams. The decision was announced days after New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella revealed earlier this week that nefarious robocalls with an AI-generated clone of President Biden's voice urging recipients not to participate in the Jan. 23 primaries – and instead save their votes for the November election – had been traced to two Texas companies. Formella vowed potential civil and criminal action at the state and federal level.

Scam and spam robocalls featuring lifelike AI-generated human voices are now officially illegal, in a unanimous ruling by the Federal Communications Commission. The new ruling, issued Thursday, promised to give'State Attorneys General across the country new tools to go after bad actors behind these nefarious robocalls.' 'Bad actors are using AI-generated voices in unsolicited robocalls to extort vulnerable family members, imitate celebrities, and misinform voters,' FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a press release. Following the new ruling, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel (above) said, 'We're putting the fraudsters behind these robocalls on notice.' 'State Attorneys General will now have new tools to crack down on these scams and ensure the public is protected from fraud and misinformation,' Rosenworcel said. The FCC ruling will expand what activities prosecutors can pursue under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which is currently the primary law allowing the authorities to help limit junk calls.

The US government on Thursday outlawed robocalls that use voices generated by artificial intelligence, a decision that sends a clear message that exploiting the technology to scam people and mislead voters won't be tolerated. The unanimous ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) targets robocalls made with AI voice-cloning tools under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a 1991 law restricting junk calls that use artificial and prerecorded voice messages. The announcement comes as New Hampshire authorities are advancing their investigation into AI-generated robocalls that mimicked President Joe Biden's voice to discourage people from voting in the state's first-in-the-nation primary last month. Effective immediately, the regulation empowers the FCC to fine companies that use AI voices in their calls or block the service providers that carry them. It also opens the door for call recipients to file lawsuits and gives state attorneys general a new mechanism to crack down on violators, according to the FCC.

For a while now, Washington has been wrestling with two big forces shaping technology: social media and artificial intelligence. Who should do it--and how? Currently, Congress is considering a bill that would regulate how social media companies treat minors: the Kids Online Safety Act. Although it has bipartisan support, KOSA is not without controversy. Several critics have called it "government censorship." One group, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says it is "one of the most dangerous bills in years."

Amazon is cracking down price gougers on its platform who are looking to make a profit from the coronavirus that is wreaking havoc across the globe. The tech giant has pulled more than 530,000 listings from the site and suspended over 2,500 US sellers. The firm announced on Friday it is working with state attorneys general to identify and prosecute third-party sellers who are taking advantage of fears of the spreading coronavirus to engage in price-gouging on the Amazon website. Amazon also said it has begun manual audits of products in its online stores to spot sellers that evade its automated systems, which check for items that are'unfairly priced.' Amazon is cracking down price gougers on its platform who are looking to make a profit from the coronavirus that is wreaking havoc across the globe.

In December, Microsoft President Brad Smith urged lawmakers to set rules on facial-recognition technology to prevent a privacy-threatening "race to the bottom." Now the company has joined a legislative fight in its home state against rules it says would be too restrictive. Microsoft is pushing back on a bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of Washington state lawmakers that would ban local and state governments from using facial recognition until certain conditions are met, including a report by the state attorney general certifying that systems in use are equally accurate for people of differing races, skin tones, ethnicities, genders, or age. Microsoft has endorsed a different bipartisan privacy bill, modeled on European data laws. It contains less restrictive facial-recognition rules, which closely mirror Smith's proposals from December.

In December, Microsoft President Brad Smith urged lawmakers to set rules on facial-recognition technology to prevent a privacy-threatening "race to the bottom." Now the company has joined a legislative fight in its home state against rules it says would be too restrictive. Microsoft is pushing back on a bill sponsored by a bipartisan group of Washington state lawmakers that would ban local and state government from using facial recognition until certain conditions are met, including a report by the state attorney general certifying that systems in use are equally accurate for people of differing races, skin tones, ethnicities, genders, or age. Microsoft has endorsed a different bipartisan privacy bill, modeled on European data laws. It contains less restrictive facial recognition rules, which closely mirror Smith's proposals from December.