The FTC just announced an all-new division to tackle technology’s “snake oil,” giving it another shot past the overzealous industry bow with a cheeky warning to “hold back on AI claims.” Sent.
I wrote a little while ago (5 years ago) that “AI-powered” is the nonsensical equivalent of “all-natural”, but we’re progressing beyond cheekiness. Almost every product out there seems to claim to implement some form of AI, but very few go into detail and explain exactly what it does and why. Very little can be done yet.
The FTC doesn’t like it. Whatever someone means when they say “powered by artificial intelligence,” or a version of it, “one thing is for sure, it’s a marketing term,” the agency wrote. “And he said at the FTC, one thing we know about hot marketing terms is that some advertisers just can’t stop abusing them.”
Everyone says AI is reinventing everything, but a TED Talk does one thing. Claiming it as an official part of your product is a whole other thing. I would like to.
So if your product uses AI, or your marketing team claims to use AI, the FTC asks you to consider:
- Am I exaggerating what AI products can do? If your product makes sci-fi claims that it can’t back up, like reading emotions, improving productivity, or predicting behavior, it’s a good idea to tone them down.
- Are you promising that AI products are better than non-AI products? Sure, you can make weird claims like “4 out of 5 dentists prefer AI-powered toothbrushes,” but it’s better to put all four on the record. Claiming AI superiority requires evidence.
- Are you aware of the risks? “Reasonably foreseeable risks and consequences” sounds a bit vague, but lawyers can help you understand why limits should not be exceeded here. Your product will fail if certain people use it because you haven’t tried it, or if its results are biased because the dataset is poorly constructed. You can’t say it’s not responsible because it’s a ‘black box’ that you don’t understand or don’t know how to test,” the FTC adds. Do you offer it instead of giving it?
- Does your product actually use AI at all? As I pointed out a long time ago, one engineer used an ML-based tool to optimize the curve, which led to claims that something was “AI-powered” or that the product used AI. It does not mean that Meaning the whole bucket is full of it. The FTC believes otherwise.
“We don’t need machines to predict what the FTC will do if these claims aren’t supported,” it ominously concludes.
Agencies have already published common-sense guidelines for AI claims in 2021 (there were many “detect and predict COVID” guidelines at the time), so direct questions to that document, including citations and precedents. I’m here.
