Comment by yttribium
1 year ago
This thread wildly misunderstands "chevron deference". "Ending chevron deference" does not somehow throw us into a Mad Max anarchic hellscape where agencies cannot actually do anything, because there is always some standard for what administrative rulemaking is permissible. There is a broader question of how much leeway they have, but clarifying that AI generated voices count as "artificial" under the statute barely requires a regulation, any more than they need one to say "hit in the head with a computer" constitutes an "assault".
The problem with your argument is that, for decades, congress has been passing and failing to update laws under the understanding that the courts would apply Chevron deference.
If the courts decide to get rid of that, they're intentionally misinterpreting the laws that congress has passed over that time. They're also effectively rewriting a large fraction of US law, despite the fact that the constitution is carefully designed to prevent such a small group of (unelected or elected) people from modifying US law that quickly, and without safe guards.
The current Supreme Court has repeatedly undermined separation of powers, and they're explicitly doing so against the wishes of the electorate. Their behavior is fundamentally undemocratic.
> Their behavior is fundamentally undemocratic.
Correct, because in the United States, our model of government is a Democratic Republic, not a democracy. For all of the flaws of our system of law, the Constitution is considered supreme, and any laws that violate the Constitution are to be considered null and void. The job of the Supreme Court is to decide the Constitutionality of laws.
One interpretation of removing Chevron deference is that it's defacto rewriting law, another is that executive agencies have been doing this for decades already. The truth is probably some mix of the two.
>Constitution is considered supreme, and any laws that violate the Constitution are to be considered null and void. The job of the Supreme Court is to decide the Constitutionality of laws.
A plain and non-ideological reading of what you typed is that this is a contradiction at best and saying the SCOTUS supersedes the constitution at worst.
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>The problem with your argument is that, for decades, congress has been passing and failing to update laws under the understanding that the courts would apply Chevron deference.
It is literally the job of Congress to update laws. That they are bad at doing that is not relevant to the place of the Court in the structure of this country's government.
>If the courts decide to get rid of that, they're intentionally misinterpreting the laws that congress has passed over that time.
The opposite of this is true. If the Court decides to jettison Chevron deference (you should look in to why that case is called "Chevron") it means that gasp our legislators have to actually listen to constituents and write laws and not just bet that the executive branch in the next election cycle agrees with them.
That’s not quite true.
Overturning Chevron means federal courts no longer have to give deference to agency experts. Unelected judges will have free rein to impose their own views in these cases.
Nothing about Chevron will force Congress to write more precise laws.
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Undemocratic or capitalistic but with a cap?
If it were such that individual states with greater agency could negatively impact neighbouring states and in Chevrons original case, environment and agriculture, then it’s a dangerous precedent of opening up states to competitive market at the detriment greater societal impact and responsibilities. Both positive and negative but the incentives are there to push towards later in pursuit of fast profits and deferred responsibilities.
Am I making sense? States can compete for corporate interests, while we know full well who runs the senate: lobbyists with deep pockets.
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Imagine the following: The FCC fines a company for using AI-generated voices in robocalls. That company appeals the fine. With Chevron intact, the court would need to defer to the FCC's interpretation of the TCPA and dismiss the appeal. With Chevron overturned, the court would be able to advocate for their own interpretation of the TCPA. A favorable judge could just claim textualism, and insist that the TCPA does not apply because it does not explicitly use the word AI. Then it is a slippery slope of forum shopping and companies moving their operations to districts with sympathetic judges.
Imagine the FCC goes to congress, proposes a new rule and then congresses passes it. Then there is debate and congress can't abdicate its responsibility.
In theory sure but have you been following Congress for the past decade? They can't even come to terms on continuing resolution funding bills, let alone pass complex rules related to new contentious technologies. Perhaps I'm just a pessimist but is something that makes you think this might drastically change?
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Imagine that rule is not precise enough to cover every possible specific situation, so nobody can ever be penalized for breaking any rule, as it becomes a fractal problem where the entire year’s “work” from Congress would not be sufficient to exactly define every term needed.
Management has to be allowed to delegate. Those saying Congress should not be allowed to do so are really just saying they want the government abolished.
Then the process repeats -- someone sues over the FCC's interpretation of the new rule. What next?
Imagine an individual or company (who disagrees with the FCC's interpretation of the law) proposes a new rule to congress and then congress passes it. There is a debate and then congress updates the law they passed to reflect recent changes.
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Ruling that artificial intelligence voices aren't artificial would seriously damage the legitimacy of the court system.
Depending on who you ask, the Supreme Court under Roberts may have already damaged its legitimacy.
Even if it was unclear, ending Chevron deference wouldn’t say “the agency can no longer make these policy interpretations.” It just means that a court ought to test whether that interpretation is in compliance with the law, when that comes up in a dispute (which is something that courts are in the business of in many other areas) more so than simply deferring to the agency’s expertise on the law.
(If you look at the original Chevron decision, they were much more interested in trying to get out of the “understand and make determinations about complex environmental issues” business anyway, more so than the “understand the law” business.)
Postscript: For your next unfairly downvoted reply I recommend that you explain to someone Citizens United was actually a nonprofit trying to air a movie on cable television and was fighting the FEC over it. (Total hackjob of an organization, mind you. But core political speech.) Some facts are unpopular.
Chevron deference would come into play if the FCC tried to say that a test-tube baby was an artificial agent. I support ending the doctrine, because the shadow laws are strong and bad.
How would it? The FCC aren’t experts on the philosophical or scientific difference between artificial and natural insemination.
Under the current interpretation, that would be in their jurisdiction. This is why Chevron deference is dumb.
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This is great that this is line of comments are under an article about banning something most people here would like to see banned. That is in fact doing something good, unless I guess you're on the side of robocalls. Perhaps choose to make this argument in another thread, it'd be far more convincing.
The argument espoused should be examined more directly for things you agree with, otherwise one risks becoming a hypocrite.