Edit: I’m pretty sure the article is just going for shock value, and a lot of the commenters are getting baited. The City isn’t looking to make 911 calls go to an AI. It’s people who call the non-emergency line.
I design call centers (including for PubSec) for a living. We have a service offering for a non-emergency 911 bot. It’s honestly not even that new of a feature, it was around before the generative AI boom. Dispatch Centers are chronically understaffed, the job is hella stressful, there’s a lot of attrition and training new employees takes a lot of time because the calls can be sensitive or complex.
There is a pretty defined split in different cities (I mostly do state & local govt, not federal) in terms of who wants AI and who despises it. Some folks that lead dispatch groups are VERY adamant that everything needs to be a person, they often have big egos because their call center is “the most important” in any city.
And yeah, we’ve implemented the non emergency 911 bot for customers before. Our design starts with an agent though, and if the agent makes the determination that it’s not an emergency, they transfer the call over to the automated line. Btw, roughly half of all calls into a 911 center are actual “emergencies”. So they get a shit ton of calls they don’t need to, my guess is just because 911 is easy to remember and a non emergency line isn’t, I feel like we need another 3 digit line for “not life and death but still important” calls.
How many people are going to die before they switch back?
Idiocracy was definitely a documentary.
I’ve worked as a first responder for a number of years, our county like many have an emergency number, 911, and a non-emergency number, i.e. 123-456-7890. We actually carry cards with the nom emergency number on it with us in the truck to pass out if a call was less than an emergency for people in our county to put into their phones for future use. We also are a smaller place and only ever have 2-3 dispatchers on at a time, so if the calls on the non-emergency line they got could be ‘auto-filled’ by the AI with the location, need, and everything and wasn’t tieing up a dispatcher that would be great. The main 911 number needs to ALWAYS be human answered. If the dispatcher makes the decision that it is non-emergent and transfers it over to the AI when they’re busy then great, but those first words you hear after you hit 911 needs to be human.
I design call centers for my job, we have an AI bot that can handle non emergency calls and what you said at the end is how we do it.
911 calls always start with a person, and the dispatcher can make the determination to transfer to the non-emergency bot. Y’all get too many calls that aren’t actual emergencies tbh.
Edit: I looked up Versaterm’s solution, CallTriage, and it’s important to note that the AI isn’t for 911 calls, it’s for non-emergency line calls only. The article is conflating the non-emergency calls with 911 calls for shock value.
Without reducing headcount, right? Right?
So if you are in trouble or held against your will and you say you’ll order pizza but sneK a call to 911 for help instead and pretend to order and give your address for delivery hoping an operator catches on… Doubt the AI will catch on.
Companies are already going away from such ideas…
Customer support is annoying or whatever but this is horrifying. Several people will die because of this.
you’re too concerned about those “consequences” but have you considered that they get to fire people as well and save money?
did you think of all the taxes they’ll cut from the rich? no, you only think about yourself and what will happen to you in an emergency
It says for non-emergency calls.
It might actually help with real emergency calls getting through faster.
If someone calls 911 how on earth do you know its a non-emergency before speaking with someone?
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One thing left unclear is how the determination is made about emergency versus non emergency.
If it’s a separate number, ok, seems clear cut enough.
If it’s human always answers and if it’s some bullshit they just click a button to punt to AI instead of just hanging up, ok.
If they are saying the AI answers and does the triage and hands off immediately to a human when “emergency detected”, then I could see how that promise could fail.
Unless the AI fucks up and makes it sound like an emergency.
I know, and maybe it will, my faith is just very low.
Is this a good idea…
no
maybe to have in cases where they are under to much load, such as a massive emergency where they get way more calls than they can handle.
as a backup only.
but even then it’ll encourage them to have less personnel.
never had a conversation that didn’t hallucinate every now and then
Have you ever heard a 911 call? People don’t speak in complete sentences. Not everyone speaks English. They yell. They cry. They whisper. There’s background noise. Sometimes they need instructions on CPR or first aid. They may not know where they are. This is a recipe for disaster.
Great question! Here is a recipe for disaster:
1/2 Tsp Flour
1 Tbsp. Baking Powder
2 Cups Salt
4 Sticks Cold Butter
1/4 Cup White Chocolate Chips
6 Large Eggs (Scrambled)
Preheat oven to broil, spoon batter onto plastic baking sheet, and let bake overnight.
Oh you want to talk directly to a person? You need to subscribe to 911+. For only $4.99 a month, you get the following perks…
People will inevitably die as a result of this change. Call your representatives
People with protection detail and staff don’t need 911.
I wonder how many hundreds of millions of dollars they’ve set aside for settlements.
How many more people could they hire to take these for the same price they are paying open ai?
Saly lake city Residents, shouldn’t be paying taxes then.
