<div dir="ltr"><div>Relating to that quote <a href="https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/summary-discussing-applications-generative-ai-rule-development-and-evaluation">https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/summary-discussing-applications-generative-ai-rule-development-and-evaluation</a></div><div><br></div><div>[snippet] "...
<p>First, agencies use different approaches when addressing AI-generated
comments, with consequential results. The Federal Communication
Commission’s (FCC) <a href="https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Electronic Comment Filing System</a> and the General Services Administration’s (GSA) <a href="https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/organization/federal-acquisition-service/technology-transformation-services/erulemaking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eRulemaking program</a>
(which is used by dozens of federal agencies as a shared service)
represent the two broad strokes of public commenting processes.
Participants discussed how back in the mid-2010s different government
agencies experienced spikes in what appeared to be a mixture of human-
and bot-submitted public comments, although an exceedingly small number
of rulemaking efforts saw more than 10,000 comments. <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">A 2021 analysis of a
spike in public comments impacting the Environmental Protection Agency <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01900692.2021.1931314" target="_blank" rel="noopener">observed</a>
that “the 2002 E-Government Act did not anticipate the emergence of
bots and thus fails to provide agencies with sufficient guidance on how
to identify and treat bots and fake comments.”</span></p>
<p>Participants <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">observed that the FCC had legally interpreted the
Administrative Procedure Act (APA) of 1946 and related policies in a
manner that effectively gave senior management less discretion to
address the risk of comment surges – and precluded the FCC from being
able to adopt the GSA’s eRulemaking program. </span>During the mid-2010s, the
then-CIO had attempted to make the case for the FCC to adopt the
eRulemaking program and not succeeded. This <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">stemmed from the FCC’s
interpretations of the APA that prioritized real-time viewing of
comments rather than waiting to post submissions until they are
processed, acceptance of all comments even if they were perceived as
potential spam, allowance of anonymous comments or comments with no
identification checks, a reluctance to use CAPTCHA, and a strong push by
external parties for the ability to submit comments in bulk. </span>While the
FCC’s legacy Electronic Comment Filing System eventually moved to a <a href="https://lnwprogram.org/content/out-danger-leading-system-and-culture-change-fcc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cloud-based service</a>
that included API rate limits for comment submissions, it employed a
GSA service that before 2017 did not monitor API key requests for
multiple registrations. After 2017, GSA’s public-facing platform,
located at <a href="https://www.regulations.gov" target="_blank" rel="noopener">regulations.gov</a>, successfully implemented techniques such as CAPTCHA and API rate limits to <a href="https://regulatorystudies.columbian.gwu.edu/will-chatgpt-break-notice-and-comment-regulations">mitigate</a> the risk of being overwhelmed by automated submissions. The FCC since 2017 has made some adjustments too.</p>
<p>Participants also discussed how the 2017 net neutrality rulemaking
demonstrated that the <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">FCC’s interpretations of the APA made it
technically at risk of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/14/millions-fake-commenters-asked-fcc-end-net-neutrality-astroturfing-is-business-model/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">astroturfing</a> </span>– defined as <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/astroturfing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">organized activity</a>
that falsely attempts to pass itself off as a grassroots movement. The
Commission’s proposal received nearly 23 million comments in 2017,
requiring the FCC to scale its cloud-based systems more than 3,000
percent to address the flood of comments. In 2021, the New York Attorney
General identified at least <a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-issues-report-detailing-millions-fake-comments-revealing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18 million</a> of these comments as not authentic. Since 2017, <a href="http://regulations.gov">regulations.gov</a> has not experienced the same issues, although <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/docket/EPA-HQ-OA-2018-0259" target="_blank" rel="noopener">some</a> <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/docket/EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rulemakings</a>
routinely receive large volumes of mass submissions (though none that
approach the scale of 23 million comments). <span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,0)">Comparing different legal
interpretations of the APA and the downstream impact on technical
implementations highlighted how policy decisions may prevent the
commenting process from being overwhelmed by bots or generative AI
submissions.</span></p>
<br>..."<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 10:27 AM Frantisek Borsik via Nnagain <<a href="mailto:nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net">nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="color:rgb(31,31,31);font-family:"Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:22px">Paul Baran 1994: "The FCC has a few very good technical people, but they're totally outnumbered by the lawyers."</span></div><div><a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/false-scarcity-baran-cngn-94" target="_blank">https://www.eff.org/pages/false-scarcity-baran-cngn-94</a></div><div><br clear="all"><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div>All the best,</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Frank<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Frantisek (Frank) Borsik<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik</a><u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714 <u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">iMessage, mobile: +420775230885<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Skype: casioa5302ca<u></u><u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><a href="mailto:frantisek.borsik@gmail.com" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank">frantisek.borsik@gmail.com</a></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 3:06 PM Dave Taht via Nnagain <<a href="mailto:nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net" target="_blank">nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">not an obvious technologist to be seen...<br>
<br>
<a href="https://www.fcc.gov/general/intergovernmental-advisory-committee-current-members" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.fcc.gov/general/intergovernmental-advisory-committee-current-members</a><br>
<br>
-- <br>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Tmvv5jJKs" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Tmvv5jJKs</a> Epik Mellon Podcast<br>
Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos<br>
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