Federal regulators are poised to ban the impersonation of anyone, aiming to thwart scams in an AI-driven world.
Driving the news: The FTC announced Thursday that it’s proposing to modify a rule that already prevents the impersonation of government and businesses to include the impersonation of individuals.
Between the lines: The FTC’s proposed rule could specifically make it illegal to use AI platforms to foster impersonation, such as “voice cloning” and falsified video.
It’s worse. Impersonation is already fraud in most contexts that AI scammers are targeting. This is just reaction theater for the threat of the day. The FTC is fairly toothless when it really matters.