New Orleans will use AI to answer 911 calls instead of a human
https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/local/louisiana/2026/07/28/is-new-orleans-using-ai-to-answer-911-calls-instead-of-human-dispatchers-impacts-emergencies-crime/91065014007/Open linkView original on lemmy.today
221 replies
This will kill people.
Yes. So many. Everyone involved in this decision, on both the legislative and corporate sides, needs to get the fucking wall.
But it's new Orleans, so some of the difficult to emotionally comprehend number of deaths it causes might at least be funny.
I have mixed feelings on this and how they are implementing it. Here's the direct quote
In a way this will reduce caller volume for the same incidents being called in over and over again. Seems like they are using a direct yes or no question which decreases any issues with the AI making shit up.
I do see how this can free up humans to deal with other calls and dispatch lifesaving services faster, eliminating repeat calls.
However, even if the AI works as described (which is a big if anyway), having to navigate even a simple yes or no will reduce time to lifesaving care.
Our 911 system has been slow and inadequate for a long time now. There has been an absolute refusal to fix it, and this has led to deaths. I do see this application easing that issue a bit, but I also see how this will cause deaths in a different way. Is it better to die on hold waiting for an operator or is it better to die navigating an AI system? I think less would die overall with the new system. It has been trained using the non-emergency call line.
To be clear I want us to just fund people to staff the 911 call center, but these shortages have been an issue for decades. Local governments refuse or are unable to take on the additional costs. I'm really unsure on how to feel about all this. My gut reaction is disgust, but I do see what they are trying to do. I guess we'll have to wait for the data and stories
The key is to remember you can't actually fix anything except with the wacky fashionable new scam. .and since when does a y/n require fucking “ai"?
I think the summary of the existing incident and providing updates is where they are using the AI. Which if given a limited data set should work.
These LLM models do actually a good job of summarizing a list of facts you feed it. The issues happen when you want it to make something "new"
For 911 I'd rather the government find the money to fund them, but I do feel like they are using AI in an appropriate scope.
AI should not be used in life and death situations like a 911. But the way they are going about the roll out is demonstrating how to actually use AI as a tool and not some miracle machine.
They should have left it only on the non-emergency line and called it there.
A person could do this better faster cheaper lower odds of failure.
'It can kinda do it sometimes so it's ready to go live' is slopper propaganda. There is no "AI" extant at this date.
This is just an excuse to kill poor people. As all "ai" is.
But...just think how many money they can save! You are being selfish!
/s
Yeah, I can just imagine how well a "AI" would deal with a situation like this when they can't even operate a drive-thru properly.
I ask this out of genuine, burning curiosity, and mean no rudeness by this...
Did you read the article that the OP linked to?
I don't mean to single you out with this question, I'm just confused after scrolling this far through sooo many similar comments. It almost feels as if I somehow ended up reading a different article from everyone else.
Did you read the article?
So if somebody calls and is completely out of his mind, what will AI do?
Is this a rhetorical question?
Just in case you wanted a real answer: The caller is obviously not saying "yes," so transfer to human.
To be clear: I don’t know anyone at Carbyne or OPCD. I can only offer speculation. But I'm curious: What would you have guessed?
What if someone is obviously out of their mind and says yes? Random example, say someone has a stroke and has just barely figured out how to use the big red emergency call button on their phone screen. The AI asks if they are calling about blah blah emergency. Maybe the person only understands half of it, thinks they’re being asked if they’re calling about an emergency and say “yes”. Now they’re stuck having a form letter read to them by AI while their brain is dying. A person would catch something was up even if they said yes.
The article even notes this can be a problem without anything medical going on:
Responding to people having emergencies is too important a task to leave up to voice recognition slapped on top of an LLM.
Besides "because it supports the conclusion I want to arrive at", what makes you believe this is true?
People having a stroke can’t carry on a conversation and seem normal.
I don't know the concrete answer to your "what if,' and I don't think you or the author of the article do either. That would be a question for Carbyne.
I would speculate that there is an answer, and that neither you nor the author are the first to think of these problem scenarios. There's design, engineering, and real-world testing involved.
“Well I just trust they thought of it” isn’t good enough.
I guess you don't have lots of interaction with AI yet?
Very incorrect. Why do you ask?
I gave you the benefit of the doubt. If you've had lots of interactions with AI, I am not sure how you can think that anything with AI can work as expected, specially in complicated edge cases.
They know it will. They don’t care.
And then it will be nobody's fault, nobody could have predicted this. <- Their pre-planned excuse.
People will die.
Yeah but it's just poor people so who cares. Look at the sweet pool the AI company bought whoever approved this!
Sounds like tiered classes of privatized healthcare is well under way. Platinum trauma team subscriptions are getting closer.
Yeah, rich people call 10-1-1. LOL.
That’s the point. It’s cheaper than dealing with what is coming.
They know this and they don’t care.
How many? And how does that number compare to how many people died due to call volume surges before implementing this triage tech?
The Farquuad meme
"Some if you may die, but its a sacrifice I am willing to make"
Grok911, what is your emergency and do you know about the genocide of white South Africans?
Would you like to read some Lolita fanfic while I’m thinking?
"Activate your camera so you can face time with my anime girl avatar"
Not to be confused with AI "safety" "expert" Eliezer Yudkowsky's rape fanfic
You need to immitate their accent to receive premium service.
What could go wrong
"Please help! I'm trapped in a basement and there's a man with a gun!"
"Wow! I think it's great that you're looking to leave your comfort zone. There's a lot to see outside the basement, so it's good to broaden your horizons. There are a few options to solve your predicament that we can workshop together. First, are you stuck behind a door, or are you physically incapable of moving? In both cases, I think your best bet is to ask the man with the gun to lend a hand. If there is a door in the way, the man with the gun can shoot out the lock and open that door in no time. But if you aren't able to move, I'd say the man could help carry you out of that basement, too. While we wait for the man to assist, would you like some basement decorating ideas to make your current situation more pleasant?"
"No you don't understand, he is trying to kill me!"
"Wow, that is a lot to unpack! It seems like you believe this man means you harm, but you don't seem to have any logical basis for those feelings. Based on the circumstances, it sounds like you may be misinterpreting helpful vibes as scary due to flaws in your social perception, which could indicate an unhealthy pattern of self-destructive behavior. The first step to help always starts from within, but I can recommend some local therapists in your area who could better address the feelings you have in the long term."
(...)
You’re right to push back. I understand why you’re upset, and I’m sorry you experienced that.
If you’re still in danger, please try to remain calm, find a secure location, and contact emergency services.
What would you like to do next? Shall I help you:
✅ Review what happened,
💭 Think through your options,
🫂 Find appropriate support, or
📝 Draft a statement about the incident?
I’m here to help.
(...)
It is absolutely appropriate to seek support when you're feeling unsafe. You're in the driver's seat, and I'm here to help you in any way I can.
Let's outline your next steps. How would you like me to assist? I can help you:
There are no wrong choices here. Let me know which option works best for you. I'm here to help.
Nah, it'll just think for a bit, decide trapped and gun are evil and reply with, "I'm sorry, this response breaks the response time like, please rephrase your question."
the ai when you tell it you’re being murdered
Everyone should read before reacting:
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.
Except that could be done without AI. Just have a recording that says "we are aware of ... taking place near you, are you calling about this ? “, then answer with yes/no.
No need for bullshit AI.
My understanding from other articles is caller satisfaction is greater with the TTS system, and it uses voice IVR to triage of they have additional information. AI is not bullshit in and of itself. This product seems barely diffeent from what they provided with APEX.
Recordings also can't auto respond with updates to the caller like this can, which is a pretty nice feature, even if it's just TTS.
You know what's great about the valley callers who don't make it?
No bad survey results!
My aunt was pissed when she found a hospital satisfaction survey addressed to her mother, a few weeks after her mom died at that hospital.
Can you share articles, interested how design a dynamic IVR to handle unfolding event and update prompts in realtime as new information is added to original incident.
Have you ever met humans? That would be a recipe for “no I’m not calling about that, I want a human” just to get to a human and say you’re calling about exactly that.
You don't need AI for that. Automated phone answering systems do exist, and can redirect people.
This is basically a beefed up IVR with better customer satisfaction reports, so.. yes.
But as I said in the other comment, giving updates to callers is something a standard answering system can't do.
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
assistantsolution 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...
So did I completely misread your comment? LOL
I feel like i was pretty clearly joking.
It went over my head. Sorry. Everything is not the onion these days.
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.
Thank you for your insight. I had logistical questions I thought you might could answer, but I see now that I was wrong about that.
Why can you not see that im clearly making a joke. A large team of trained staff on call for emergencies which they'd rush in suddenly to deal with calls like once a year. You dont think that sounds so absurd that its clearly not "just that simple"?
Even assuming perfect conditions - where the caller very clearly states what's happening and the AI agent understands everything properly - this is a waste of resources. Just hire more operators dawg. It's really not that complicated.
And then think about what happens outside of those perfect conditions. So pretty much most calls.
Have offered your recruiting skills/services to them? The nationwide 911 operator/dispatcher shortage has been a problem for years, so if you find it easy or uncomplicated to recruit them, then your services might be very valuable.
(Yes, I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here by assuming that that was an informed opinion.)
I wish this were pinned at the top. It seems like almost nobody reads beyond the headline.
This is one of the few actually cool and useful implementariins to me. It reminds me of my work writing systems to detect antimicrobial issues in hospitals.
A shame it's getting so much hate, but they did choose to brand with "AI" so they get what they ask for.
And if someone tries to call with new unreported information about an already reported incident? Decision tree or geolocation routes caller to recorded information. No way of knowing if information is important or not without talking to the caller first. Possible downside is far greater than possible benefits.
Edit Multiple calls about shots in neighborhood, if victim is last to call are they forced to listen to an update before triage allows transfer? No sir I don't like it.
Maybe this is an improvement in this location, but as many have said a staffing issue.
Functional societies have costs, often those costs are far less than dysfunctional societies.
Joe's Apartment, the 911 call center be like
:sigh: Yet again, nobody reads the fucking article and it is VERY obvious from most of the comments. If you can't be bothered, then don't fucking comment.
If you had READ the article: They're answering with the AI saying like "Are you calling about X?" If the callers says no, they are transferred to a human. If they ARE calling about an incident, then they can get updates and information about it.
Now, I grant that this is still not perfect, but the stated goal is humans spending less time talking to people reporting an incident already reported so they can actually talk to people needing help faster.
Assuming that works out, this is actually a good idea and an improvement.
Now, if you wanna be cynical about it, fine. But just read the damn article and be cynical about what's actually happening, not about what you think from the headline, or all you end up looking like an ass.
I came into the comments to have a good discussion on the issue. I should have known better. I'm so irritated by the majority of comments that I lost interested in the topic itself, even though there's at least one ofther comment I saw also pointing out what the article says. But no, the majority of you can't be bothered, so screw this. And you bitch about reddit.
You don't need "ai" for this though. IVRs have been doing this for literal decades. Your average dialup ISP had a standard option for times of outages ffs.
Still, it’s a sloppy headline designed for clicks or thumbs up. It would be more accurate if it was “AI is to initially screen calls….”
sensationalized headlines aren't new. If anything they're more important now than ever
Yeah, its not handling "my grandma is dying pls send emt" calls, but more "The concert hall is on fire" call #450.
That being said, I disagree with most applications of AI that prevent human interaction. Just because im the 40th person calling about a situation doesnt mean my call is useless, it means i might have new information on an evolving situation.
Holy shit, I'm actually surprised how bad the rest of the comments are... And the volume of them!
I'll try to TL;DR it for the lemmings, with formatting that is (hopefully) easy to understand for even the most rotten of brains.
TL;DR
The problem
I'll use this example scenario below: People keep driving past a burning car on a busy road, and many of them call 911. (This will continue to happen until an emergency responder arrives.)
Before implementing this tech
After implementing this tech
If the critical failure point is accurately classifying "yes" or "not yes," even the dumbest1 models could handle that – and I doubt they use the dumbest models for 911 triage.
Even if it's not 100% perfect every time, this still sounds like a net positive.
Footnotes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACmydtFDTGs ↩
So you’re gating whether or not a caller in an emergency gets to speak to a human based on the audio recognition of a robot?
Easy enough to make it so that if the bot doesn’t hear a yes or a no clearly it defaults to forwarding the call, but what happens when a person says no and the bot “hears” yes?
I believe I touched on that in my last sentence, but I can elaborate:
That will probably happen – neural networks are approximation algorithms. It's a question of how often that happens.
What percentage of the calls get misclassified? And what's the threshold percentage that would be needed for the triage bot to be a net positive?
It sounds like they have an idea of these numbers based on data collected from the non-emergency line, so it's not like they're just blindly jumping into this.
EDIT: I just realized that I did not actually answer your question of "what happens"...
I imagine the caller would just interrupt the AI's answer (e.g. "No not that," "HELP," "Give me a human," "FUCK!" etc.)? That seems like the natural thing to do.
To be clear: I don't know anyone at Carbyne or OPCD. I can only offer speculation.
I don’t think there’s any net positive that would account for not answering an emergency call at all.
Can you really justify someone not being able to reach help at all in place of everyone being able to reach it albeit slower?
As a lifelong first responder, I couldn’t get behind something like this at all.
how long could the queue be? If someone can't wait 60 seconds for the queue, but can take the 8 seconds to ask if it's about X incident. I do imagine it will be smart enough to check their approximate location before giving the prompt
:sigh: Okay, I'll try to break it down even more...
Exactly. That's what they want to solve.
TL;DR: Even when callers reach the triage bot, they can still reach a human much faster than without the triage bot.
Comparing again:
WITHOUT the triage tech:
WITH the triage tech:
They chose this tech because it has already proven to be a net positive on their non-emergency line.
None of that applies if a caller just can’t get through at all because the bot mistook “no” for “yes”
Do you honestly think that nobody has thought about that and solved that problem already? Even with all the engineers involved, and after all the real-world testing, you're the first to have considered that scenario?
Even consumer-grade products like ChatGPT can be interrupted while talking. We're talking about an AI implementation, not some rigid set of
if...elsestatements.I believe the argument is that the probability of misclassifying an arbitrary segment of speech as the very particular answer “yes” is sufficiently low (with reasonably trained, current models) that we may ignore it under practical circumstances.
I find the non-zero probability of misclassifying in a little disquieting, but I suppose one way of looking at it is that this will probably increase the expected value of lives saved; the very probable case (calls are correctly filtered and a smaller proportion is passed through, allowing operators to respond to more new emergencies) may save a lot of lives, whereas the very improbable case (something that is not “yes” is misclassified as such) may endanger a few.
One thing that would worry me about just looking at expected values is the possibility of bias against a particular group of people or emergency type, but to me that seems unlikely in this case.
Edit: it also just occurred to me that if you are woefully unfortunate, you can probably just call again if you accept the assumption that there is a high probability the answer is yes given the model classified it as such. It might be more or less random chance?
AI is absolutely not needed for this, and is only a liability.
They could say "press 1 if you are calling about X" or even "if you are calling about X, we are already aware of it. If not, you will be transferred to an operator in a moment".
An automated system like this is easy to implement, easy to audit, and will fail in expected and managable ways.
AI is nondeterministic, and will fail randomly in very unexpected ways.
I (mostly) agree. I was just TL;DR'ing it for the shocking number of people who are commenting about things that are already addressed in the article that they didn't bother reading.
I hesitate to agree with "absolutely" though. I don't know enough about their situation to confidently have an opinion that strong1.
AI can be useful for some dynamic situations – and 911 call centers can get pretty "dynamic" at times.
Imagine a busy 911 call center. Clippy appears (wearing a firefighter uniform) on an operator's screen with a message like "The last 4 calls were about the same car fire. There are currently 9 calls in the queue. Want me to triage?" It would take WAY less time for a busy operator to click "Yes" than it would to step away and go record some voice message, configure some automated thing, etc.
Footnotes
I only ever knew one dispatcher personally, and even in her town (much lower population than New Orleans'), they were overworked. ↩
I think this could be updated by a single person for multiple developing situations up to 10 at a single time (which is unlikely for mass reports imo, I have no basis for this assumption however). Rather than needing an AI agent to update automatically
I have to agree with you one hundred, /u/percent
:)
So, Lemmy really seems to love these two things:
If a headline feeds the hunger, why risk ruining that validation by reading the article?
Also worth noting that I got angry at things AND had my biases confirmed. ;-)
This is Lemmy and it says AI. Expect nobody to read and for panties to twist so hard their legs come off.
As I replied to a similar comment, in fairness - my panties came off as well. hehe (but for a valid reason, dammit! :slams fist on desk:)
I increasingly hate Lemmy for the way this seems to constantly happen on this topic and others. It's like users are caricatures of opinions instead of people. Which, hey, maybe that's prescient.
I think it's an internet thing, not a Lemmy thing, to be honest.
I'm a voracious reader. I'm on Lemmy and basically not on reddit anymore because I want to have good discussions. And sometimes the discussions are pretty decent, but things like this put me off a bit.
It's still a pretty decent platform overall. Although that might say more about the state of the internet at large than it does say good things about Lemmy. heh. But I'm still here. :)
It's a human thing, above all else. If they wanted logical reasonable discussion, they should talk to robots. Except that's the thing they hate
If I talk to robots, I get hallucinations. And mostly true things, but it's hard to trust when they get it wrong a lot of the time. heh.
But yeah, it's also human nature. :)
Read the article. This system will get people killed in the name of efficiency. AI is nowhere near ready to route emergency calls.
What about callers that can't talk or have accents. The only proper way is to have a human answer and then transfer to an AI, not the other way around. Perhaps decades from now when theses systems are much more reliable we could trust it to be the front line, but we are nowhere near this yet.
If you have something to say, please say it. All I see is someone bitching about not having a discussion.
TOP EDIT: They were saying they read the article, not that I should read it. d'oh. Sooo, leaving my original below, but oops on misunderstanding! Sorry!
What do you fucking think I did?
I fucking well did.
Try reading all of my fucking comment then.
Depends on how they implement it. I would assume they're bound to be ahead on you on this one because some callers also can't say anything on the line because of danger, so they are aware of this issue. Since we don't have concrete details, we'll have to speculate on how they handle such things.
I won't bother to speculate further with you because I know you won't read it anyway.
No, I meant I read the article, sorry if that wasn't clear. You were bitching about people not reading it, I did.
We don't have to speculate, these same systems are being used as call agents and front line contacts for many industries now. Having dealt with these agents firsthand I can tell you they are extremely limited and pretty much garbage unless you have an issue that could easily be answered by looking at their web page.
There is no possible way to currently reduce the error rate, stop GIGO issues, audit the decision making process, stop hallucinations, etc. To even pretend these are ready for emergency situations is such a gross lack of discernment that I would consider it criminal in nature.
It is problematic to even provide the most basic service of screening of phone calls considering it could be costing previous time in an emergency. If it is a manpower issue then they should be fixing it there and not lookimg for a quick fix.
Also, you know it will not stop there. Their goal is triage so you know they are eventually moving towards far more than a simple public service emergency announcement. You will not be talking to a human in the future but a LLM that will kill people when it makes mistakes and won't be held accountable.
LOL. English ambiguity strikes again. Sorry for the misfire, totally my fault. Thanks for the kind reply and patience with me <3
I do disagree that there's no way to make it work pretty safe. Instead of defaulting to holding someone in the AI loop until they talk their way out of it, you can simply set it up to stay in the loop only if it's sure it needs to continue, i.e. anything other than something it gets like "Oh, yes, that's what I was calling about", it should dump them to a human.
And we don't know if they've set it up something like that or not. I humbly disagree that we know for sure they have not, no matter how other systems are configured.
And I also disagree that it will necessarily turn out poorly. It literally depends on how they do it. But that said, it is analgous to taking humans out of the driver's seat in the car. At some point, it will be statistically ten times safer for automated driving to drive you than letting people drive. And when we get to that point, people will be up in arms that automated driving is killing people - when it is literally only a tenth of the previous rate of death. But we humans don't like giving up that sort of control.
AI is new technology. I'm not totally behind them doing this, but I see the goal. And if they configure it correctly to fail-to-human rather than fail-to-AI-loop, I can see how this can save lives, not lose them. Of course if you're right and they screw it up it could be worse. I guess we'll see with time what they do and how it works.
But I firmly believe that trying to fight against all the tech is the wrong move. It's like trying to fight to keep woodchoppers employed. The tech is there and much of what it is doing is inevitable. What we should be focused on is solving wealth inequality, solving our oligarch problem, solving the lack of social safety nets, living wages, our government working for all of us, not just bilionaires.
So you and I probably aren't going to see eye to eye on this, but I can respect you better now that I know what you were saying better. :) Sorry to have flubbed that!
Pretty safe? I am sorry but if it is your life on the line or a loved one pretty safe is just not going to cut it. When the AI decides your dying grandmother isn't priority because of a reason no one can explain or audit what then.This is a huge safety issue than you hand wave away because you are apparently enamored with AI.
I am trying to keep an open mind but replacing human thinking in emergency situations is not a reasonable application. You want a LLM model to triage your medical care with an unproven model that can and does make serious mistakes?
https://www.foley.com/p/102ixtc/stanford-study-finds-high-percentage-of-errors-using-large-language-models-in-leg/
This is not speculation. These companies are selling snake oil at this point and you act as their carnival barker. I do think that decades in the future these systems will be ready for these challenges, but I am not insane enough to believe this roll out is anything other than a cash grab at this point.
I find your statement that humans don't like giving up control very disturbing. We obviously do give up control for routine low level things like GPS everyday. This is not what your are alluding to though. You are advocating for giving up a higher level of control to an algorithm that can't be held accountable.
Maybe you are ready for a world of half baked customer agents, managers, counselors, architects, artists, doctors, teachers, judges, emergency dispatchers, etc but I am not. Ceding our control to a corporatocracy of profit driven yes men is not going to end well.
I'll keep it simple and based on the article in question:
Right now, people who need help are waiting longer to talk to an operator becauase operators field lots of calls about large incidents (or well-witnessed incidents).
That's causing harm RIGHT NOW.
The theory is that if you offer callers a way to NOT TAKE UP OPERATOR TIME for incidents that are known, then the people who need help talk to an operator faster and get help faster.
That is what the article presents as what they're doing.
Everything you are saying is pure speculation.
You may well be right. We'll see.
There are plenty of ways to mitigate this problem which do not require a AI solution. I find it insulting that you think it is the best solution considering their is no evidence of its effectiveness. In fact, I have presented why there are many reasons for concern.
The willingness for government to invest in unproven technology rather than increase manpower or develop their own mass alert systems is dysfunctional to say the least. The fact that they often commit to these plans without consulting experts or asking for public comment is dishonest and corrupt.
I have already had to deal with multiple people suffering from AI psychosis so I am not the biggest fan. You say real harm and AI is already doing it everyday. I see your retreat to reductionisism but I don't find it compelling in this instance. As I already alluded to, we know where this is going.
Daddy chill
Just as long as you acknowledge the proper parental relationship here, son.
lol :P
Fortunately those most directly involved in the decision have put their names on record to be held criminally accountable should any deaths occur that might have been avoided by the use of human operators and have thereby promised not to fade into the background when it all goes wrong.
They won't ever be held accountable by any legal process.
People are going to die because of that, even if AI is merely handling call "triage".
I love it.
All of the movies and novels warning of danger from AI, news of AI convincing people kill themselves, suggesting 'remedies' that would cause someone to die, or going wrong in some other way... and they decide it would be a great plan to have it answer emergency calls from people who could be in the process of being stabbed to death.
Why? Because it's cheaper than hiring enough people to do that job.
The nature of the job means that's very literally deciding that it's better for more people to die than to increase the budget for 911 operators.
Even more than this one instance, it's the same reason that AI is running pretty much everything and the streets are full of AI-powered robots when things go wrong in all of those movies and books. Because it's cheaper than paying a person to do it.
I can't think of any examples even in science fiction stories where the richest people in the world create AI and robotics and manage to automate pretty much all human labor in order to cut costs that end right there with "and then the super rich now in direct control of all production and society divided their wealth and power evenly among all humans and everyone lived happily ever after."
That's just to unrealistic, even for fiction.
Please listen closely to our menu as our options have recently changed...
cisco hold music banger fires up
You are absolutely right to call me out on that. He did break in, and he is now stabbing you. I will adjust for this in the future. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Brilliant. I can't wait for all the false calls they will generate with this tech too and then use it as excuse to Gestapo and sent people to the prison camps.
This certainly couldn't go wrong
What could possibly go wrong?
This is exhausting y'all. God I fucking hate LLMs so much. This tech could be such a exciting break through, a step towards real artificial intelligence, but stuck in academia where it belongs. Instead of getting to be excited and interested this inanimate compilation of matrices is breathing down my neck constantly.
No, not really lol.
The best analogy for this that I've heard is that it's like saying elevators are a step towards teleporters. Calling it "intelligence" is a marketing coup. It is not intelligence, artificial or otherwise.
But what is intelligence?
-every idiot who can't tell the difference when they talk to a clanker
Have you seen the first elevators? Or even used a chat bot prior to this? The definition of "AI" for a long time was just "decision trees" or some really neat classification systems. This is different. The hype and terrible business practices is the problem not the idea itself.
I also agree that calling it Artificial intelligence is a marking scheme, it's a loaded term machine learning is better. This has always kinda been a problem. Technically it's very loosely defined. I always refer to it as LLMs
So now we're at the stage of killing people directly, got it!
But universal healthcare leads to death panels or something.....
You're not wrong. Swatting in that area is going to be so easy. United States police force has already shown for years now that if AI says anything they'll just go with it and not question it. So if someone lives in the area and you want them 'dealt with' by the police, it's going to be very easy. And the police aren't going to look into it or hold themselves accountable. And the AI won't be questioned or removed. If this goes large scale you can just make an API... Don't like someone on twitch, well when you know it there will be an app for that...
shit, I didn't even think of swatting, just a voice bot stalling really urgent calls for aid or an ambulance until patients die. What you brought up is even worse.
Capitalism creating situations that won't outright be responsible for murder, but will definitely increase deaths among vulnerable people.
Evolution selecting for good capitalists.
And of course the oligarchy hiring PMCs.
This is borderline outright responsible for murder. Maybe not exactly but so close its hard to tell it apart.
Working my way through Person of Interest again. Just watched one where a search company was directing suicidal inquiries to ads instead of helplines. And that was before they get bought by the evil AI overlord. Its surreal seeing Palantir, Flock and all the tech companies race to implement a dystopia no sane person would ever want and there is so little push back. What the fuck is wrong with regular people?
Press 1 if your being raped press 2 if someone is trying to kill you please hold.
You have selected "regicide". If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press 1...
I love this gag!
Can I get desperately needed help please??? N.O.
Jfc such abysmal concern for human life
Fuck this is dark.
If the people profiting from this were to be executed when the system cost the first human life, it wouldn't make it to a proposal.
Yeah except we live in a capitalism dystopian hellhole. The people who brought this idea to fruition will be celebrated by the Epstein Class; for saving money and getting rid of the poors.
Yes it is dark:
Basically they are testing this to see if they can handle multiple callers to keep the lines and operators open for new emergencies. They are testing and not being irresponsible.
What is dark about this is that nobody even read the fucking article but jumps to conclusion on the fucking clickbait headline. We are becoming a global civilization of programmed morons where you only have to hit the right trigger word and everyone goes stupid.
This is Louisiana. The cost in human life was a selling point everywhere except official documents.
AIneOneOne: I understand your concern that you had an accident and hit a tree — a lost limb hurts, but did you know that oak trees are are hosts to more caterpillar species than any other species in North America?
[Waning consciousness] ...help...
Sure! I can help you with that!
One of the most fascinating facts about oak trees is that they function almost like wildlife restaurants—especially for caterpillars, which are essential food for birds and many other animals.
Here are some useful facts:
🌳 Oaks are the No. 1 caterpillar-producing plant genus in North America. Ecologist Doug Tallamy and colleagues compiled host-plant records and found that oaks (Quercus) support more species of caterpillars than any other plant genus.
🐛 In the Mid-Atlantic alone, oaks support about 557 species of caterpillars. That's [wall of text]
[Death]
Would you like to learn more about the different species of oak around the world?
Went looking in the comments for the new emergency number. Guess I kind of found it. So easy to remember!
011.8999.881.99.9119.725... ... ... ... ... 3
Well, that's easy to remember
What kind of stupid politician is claiming to be working as the people's representative with this policy?
Easy fix:
If anyone bothered to read the article, it's not nearly as stupid as it sounds. That's not to say it's a good idea, just that not nearly as dumb as people are making it out to be.
It's designed specifically to handle multiple callers who are calling about existing/known incidents, as a tool to relieve human operators, and simply gather additional details, or provide information to the callers.
So while I can't say that I'm in favor of it, the actual scope of deployment is much different than what the headline would have you believe.
"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."
Imagine being in a life or death situation or delerious and having to now decode what the AI is asking you about whether or not this is "regarding the incident"?
How does that even work? Is it gonna be like " oh hey, is this about the rape at 100 Rfucked Lane?"
More likely "we noticed you said that this is about a wreck. We've determined that this is about the same wreck we are already getting calls about (because no way two or more wrecks would occur on the highway the same day) so please go ahead and leave any new information here!" And its just a robot.
Imagine trying to whisper that you are in immediate danger and some AI is like "I didn't catch that, could you please speak up" forcing you to talk full volume into the phone. Or, maybe you're screaming too loud where a human can make sense of it but an AI is just hallucinating what it thinks you're saying.
It's a horrible idea and 20 years ago I would say I am shocked but not anymore. They don't care about us.
Sure, what could possibly go wrong?
I predict a dramatic increase in the number of suicides. Specifically among those desperately calling 911 for help.
But higher satisfaction from those calling 911 for cookie recipes!
Wow! With all the calls in NOLA… seems like one of the dumbest things to use during someone’s emergency! What if someone was being kidnapped and an open line and the AI voice is going to try to keep talking therefore, killing the individual because they heard the damn AI voice repeating shit to try to answer the call!
People are going to die and many civil suits and wrongful death suits are going to be filed and TAX payers are going to have to pay for each damn suit! So in the long run… NO AI for a damn EMERGENCY LINE! This will NOT save money or lives!!
Setting aside the obvious, what's the worst that can happen?
The people responding to emergencies will be notified by AI slop with no human filter.
It sounds like that's a better alternative than what they had before though, no?
Side note: either I'm wildly misunderstanding something in the article, or a BIG majority of commenters here didn't actually read it. I'd expect some amount of the latter, but it really seems disproportionate here.
I said, "setting aside the obvious!" Besides that issue and a handful of others, it should be fine.
Aside from the fact that it obviously won't work worth a shit, I guess nothing?
What could possibly go wrong?
There will be plenty of lawsuits in the Red Run Louisiana Oblast.
Bro what
“You’re absolutely right, I was wrong to diagnosed profuse bleeding from the anus as just a mild head cold. Perhaps I should send an ambulance after… sorry token limit reached..”
"You're absolutely right. I did hallucinate sending an ambulance, more than once, earlier. Let me correct that and dispatch an ambulance to your location."
People need to police their neighborhoods. Using AI as the touchpoint for routing emergencies sends a really clear message; the cops aren't prioritizing the public safety aspect of their job. But then again, acab exists because they've always prioritized the power of the state and the financially connected.
It seems like they're doing this because they are prioritizating the public safety aspect of the job, no?
It is a attempt to reduce staff and save money. On every level it will delay response time and increase risk to those calling.
That title is written by someone who failed basic grammar. It should be "New Orleans will use AI instead of humans to answer 911 calls".
What it says as it's written is "AI will only answer 911 calls but not a human"... which doesn't make any sense.
It's also sensationalized. I guess the article's actual headline just isn't spicy enough:
Have these people never used AI on phones before? Its horrible. Worse than horrible.
Wow. This was a really bad decision. I can't imagine how many people are going to die from this
I hate this stupid AI hype.
what's the polymarket over/under for how many people have to die before they roll this back?
„Not only do I not care, it’s also funny to hear you scream“
"No, I said MASS SHOOTING, not missed movie!"
Oops! I'm really glad you clarified that for me. Would you like me to give you first aid tips?
Fucking disgusting. The people making these decisions should be responsible for every person this causes harm too.
Hey I bet Kanye West and a bewildered Mike Myers can explain why....
...too bad Kanye West isn't around anymore
Triggering headline I know but if you rtfa this is to deal with a real problem with 911 services. The vast majority of time one or two people can man a 911 line effectively even in a moderate sized city. However when a publically visible event occurs or mass casualty situation occurs there is a major triage problem sorting through redundant reporting of the same issue. A simple screen activated in these events that can be easily bypassed to reach a human if there is actual acute distress can free the human up to focus on the most relevant calls more quickly.
This is piss poor low effort reporting as the most relevant take on this would be to get ahold of an actual 911 call responder and get their take on this.
You really don't need an AI for this though. With the number of mass shootings the US sees, it's honestly shocking that they don't have a button the operator can press to activate an auto-reply along the lines of "We are already responding to , if you still want to talk to us, press 1 or wait for a reply.", which waits something like 10s before going through.
This would filter out a bunch of duplicate reporting with far less effort, and with less odds of something going wrong.
You can't put a barrier between emergency services and someone in an emergency. Sometimes they literally don't have the ability to press 1.
Just overstaff your call center. That's it.
Spend a little extra money to ensure your emergency workers aren't stressed out 24x7, and they'll have the staff to manage a bigger event.
It's an emergency service. Spend money on it like it's important.
Which is why I'm saying it should go through automatically after a short delay.
It's easy to say "just over staff" until you're faced with the reality that maybe once every five years, for a grand total of one hour, you're faced with call pressure 1000 times higher than the second highest spike. It's not viable to staff a response center to deal with thousands of people calling in the same bomb attack or shooting within minutes, when you normally see on the order of hundreds of calls per week.
What you need is the capacity to deal with 99.99... % of situations, and a safety mechanism to prevent the remaining situations from overloading your system more than necessary.
In a mass casualty event, you need to be able to filter out the people making redundant reports in order to effectively handle the important reports. You need to do that without blocking out the important reports, that's the hard part.
This is actually a product intrado sells to places to handle overflow 911 calls, it’s been a Thing forever, unfortunately seems like municipalities are getting drunk on the AI kool-aid like everyone else 😢
100%
I watched a video about a guy building his own Stonehenge the other day. Using gravity and some cool techniques, the guy moves massive stones BY HIMSELF.
Meanwhile you have people so breathlessly stupid they think that the pyramids were built by aliens because "stone heavy, these people didn't have construction equipment!!!!!".
Modern tech does not mean solutions didn't exist before. We have forgotten so much in the name of selling products that a simple solution like yours goes overlooked in favor of fucking AI and a third party company that surely definitely cares about 911.
Possible second-tier harm here: are they sending 911 calls directly to a company? That's gotta be illegal, no?
I’m guessing you’ve never heard of Intrado, was pretty much the only profitable part of the company I used to work for, before private equity bought the company and laid off tons of workers. I left before I ended up on the chopping block.
Cool.
New Orleans will kill its most vulnerable citizens to enrich tech billionaires.
there are tv shows that explain why this shit shouldn't be done...
like AI rejecting calls because the people were (rightly) hysterical and the AI could not calm them down.
Lmao. Guess we'll all die terrified. I'd be interested to know why, but it looks like its some cops' decision. I don't wonder why they get to hurt even more people.
There’s a lot of things to blame the police for, but this isn’t one of them. Besides, emergency services aren’t just cops. Why would they have all the say over a hotline they compose only one facet of?
Because I misread, probably? But its the kind of massively overreaching think I'm used to cops doing or trying to do here. Glad we have a different group of people to blame.
How long before it decides "this is an unsafe conversation so i'm going to leave this here"
And another step toward Orwell’s Dystopian Hellhole…
They know New Orleans is on borrowed time but they don’t want to spend money helping people and businesses relocate so they will just kill New Orleans off.
They should be doing this for the voluntary UHF 5/35 duplex emergency repeaters in my opinion.
All yall saying this is gunna kill people do not live in New Orleans. 911 is well know to move at the pace of a snail goin the wrong way up an escalator. This can only improve things (it won't, but anything helps) , worst case it's a change that no one notices. Some ones nephew got a contract for this, I garuntee it.
Oh I am sure putting a machine that's only goal is to say things that seem real is going to help that...
Oh, how long until an AI ends up swatting people. There will probably even be different categories:
Or just as likely never dispatches in the case of a real emergency. I have a hard time thinking of what could go right.
Hire more operators? Nah Ai bot? Sure Solid logic I also love how bloated police budgets are but get the other departments in the city related are struggling to keep the lights on.