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!

So, say a tower block fire happens at 2 am. You’re getting 50 calls a minute, 20% from residents and the rest from people calling to say they see a fire.

How long would it take for your trained staff to spring into action compared to an on demand AI? And are you paying your on-call staff to wait, or only when they’re on the phone?

edit: I’m thinking about the Grenfell Towers. I listened to the BBC’s coverage of the enquiry, and it was rough. Gave me a new appreciation for what emergency responders do.

Are you people really this fucking dense?