New Orleans will use AI to answer 911 calls instead of a human

Everyone should read before reacting:

This is intended to handle the increase of calls that are related to one incident, so callers get automatically routed to an AI agent who asks if they are calling regarding the incident. If the answer is yes, then callers can receive information or updates, and if it’s no, then the callers are transferred to a human.

This makes sense. A big thing happens that you are aware of. Geolocated calls from that area flood in. An operator, who could be getting useful info, has to handle a flood of “Guess what I just saw!”

Note that I think they should spend the money on more operators instead, but at least this seems like it has good guardrails.

How many operators to handle say 100 calls in 5 minutes? Now imagine the cost to staff a small 911 center to ensure your can handle those calls 24/7. The money doesn’t exist.

Butts in seats don’t exist right now either. As long as the fancy ivr allows the caller to reach a human with minimal effort, this seems like a scary sounding but neat assistant solution to a problem without a real solution.

Well it wouldn’t cost much cause you’d only need to employ them for a very short amount of time on occasion. Just have a large team of trained staff on call - its just that simple!

Listen to yourself. Have a large team of trained staff on call. How much do you think that costs? No go on guess. Do some calculations. The people do not exist to fill the seats. The money does not exist to pay the non-existent people. This is an attempt to make an already shitty situation better.

I work in this industry and I read the article. I understand what they are doing. I hate AI but this seems reasonable.

yeah no shit…