CNS News–In a significant development that underscores the growing concerns around the misuse of artificial intelligence in political processes, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office has taken decisive action against Life Corporation and an individual identified as Walter Monk.
This response comes in the wake of an investigation into an anti-voting robocall campaign that utilized a cloned voice of President Biden, artificially generated to dissuade voters from participating in the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election held on January 23.
The cease-and-desist order issued by the Attorney General’s Election Law Unit to Life Corporation is grounded in a violation of New Hampshire law, which strictly prohibits any form of deterrence from voting based on fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, or spurious grounds or information.
The artificial voice in the robocalls, mimicking President Biden, conveyed a message that effectively discouraged voters from casting their ballots in the primary, suggesting instead to “save your vote for the November election,” with the misleading assertion that voting in the primary would inadvertently support Republican efforts to re-elect Donald Trump.
The robocall message, “What a bunch of malarkey… You know the value of voting Democratic when our votes count. You must save your vote for the November election. We’ll need your help in electing Democrats up and down the ticket. Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday,” exemplifies the deceptive nature of the campaign, exploiting the trust voters place in recognized political figures.
The use of the text-to-speech engine by ElevenLabs to create the deepfake voice of President Biden has drawn significant attention, leading to the suspension of the user account responsible for the creation of the deepfake. Moreover, the robocalls were found to have “illegally spoofed their caller ID information to appear to come from a number belonging to a former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair,” adding another layer of deception and misuse of technology to influence voter behavior.
The collaborative efforts of tech firms YouMail and Nomorobo have been pivotal in identifying the robocalls, with the trace back to Life Corporation and Walter Monk facilitated by the Industry Traceback Group, an entity operated by the telecom industry. Nomorobo’s estimation places the number of robocalls between 5,000 and 25,000, indicating the scale of the operation.
Further investigations have revealed the involvement of Texas-based Lingo Telecom as the originating voice service provider for many of these calls. Following notification of the ongoing investigation, Lingo Telecom suspended its services to Life Corporation, showcasing the immediate repercussions of the investigation’s findings.
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The Election Law Unit’s comprehensive approach also includes issuing document preservation notices and subpoenas for records not only to Life Corporation and Lingo Telecom but also to other entities that may hold relevant information for the Attorney General’s ongoing investigation.
Attempts to elicit comments from Walter Monk have so far been unsuccessful, with media reports indicating a lack of response from his office. Meanwhile, Life Corporation’s entanglement in this controversy has prompted a different company with the same name, based in Florida and involved in medical device manufacturing, to clarify its non-affiliation with the Texas company implicated in the robocall campaign.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has also taken a stand against Lingo Telecom, demanding an immediate cessation of support for unlawful robocall traffic on its networks. This action is part of a broader initiative by the FCC, which is contemplating a vote to explicitly declare the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls as illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.