You forgot the part where they’re also painfully understaffed. Automating things is not going to fix the issue.

Exactly how hell is the system going determine non and emergency calls. Didn't know when you call 911 you have to make choices. So is it like calling customer service?

I thought point 911 was I got a human immediately on the phone that can help me.

I think the non-emergency number should be heavily advertised. I have no idea what the local one for me is (if it even exists)

In an ideal world, if it's someone who immediately mentions that it's third time they've called this week about a neighbor having a dead tree in their garden, or someone's mad because someone else parked in "their" spot, someone's calling the fire department on someone having a bbq or someone's stubbed their toe, that sort of thing can get put way down the "call back later" list

Everything else gets put through to a person. In LA it's not unusual to wait 15+ minutes after you call 911; most cities are going to be shorter, and if the wait is under a minute, you don't need the AI triage. If you do have a wait and block out 25% of calls which are obviously a waste of time with AI, you can significantly reduce that (ideally in addition to hiring more operators, but let's be realistic...)

In an ideal world, if it's someone who immediately mentions that it's third time they've called this week about a neighbor having a dead tree in their garden, or someone's mad because someone else parked in "their" spot, someone's calling the fire department on someone having a bbq or someone's stubbed their toe, that sort of thing can get put way down the "call back later" list

Everything else gets put through to a person. In LA it's not unusual to wait 15+ minutes after you call 911; most cities are going to be shorter, and if the wait is under a minute, you don't need the AI triage. If you do have a wait and block out 25% of calls which are obviously a waste of time with AI, you can significantly reduce that (ideally in addition to hiring more operators, but let's be realistic...)

I didn't forget that part. The article indicates that they have job openings that they are simply not getting applicants for. Throwing more money at staffing won't fix that, you can't magically spawn qualified people out of nothing.

I seem to be the only person in this thread who's actually reading and responding to the article, and every response I give instantly gets hit with downvotes. Do people simply want to be angry about AI, and so anything that might interfere with the purity of that anger is unwelcome? Maybe we should just have a daily thread with a title of simply "How about that AI, huh?" That people can post angry comments in without fear of meaningful interruption.

Read the article.

Kehoe countered that the AI system would interact only with nonemergency callers and that emergency calls to 911 would be routed only to human dispatchers. In fact, she added, “on nonemergency calls, it might detect those elevated stress levels [for callers] and it will automatically default going to a human being as well.”

“There are a lot of safeguards,” Kehoe added, “to ensure that even with the tiniest bit of doubt, we don’t have someone just sitting on the phone and not getting help.”

The AI system will only reroute calls that it can determine are not emergency calls. The default will be to let the calls through to the human staff. It's not going to be some sort of primitive "press 1 if you are currently on fire" menu system.

Kehoe countered that the AI system would interact only with nonemergency callers and that emergency calls to 911 would be routed only to human dispatchers. In fact, she added, “on nonemergency calls, it might detect those elevated stress levels [for callers] and it will automatically default going to a human being as well.”

Are nonemergency calls coming in through a separate number or are they still coming in through the 911 number? I thought nonemergency calls come through a separate number but i only see references to 911 in this article. So which is it? If you call 911 and get an AI then that's terrible. If this is for a dedicated nonemergency line then this sounds great.

Contracted to a private corporation, of course.

Modern AI is not a "virtual roulette wheel."

And if you'll read the article, it mentions that they don't have enough staff to handle all the calls they're getting. They have job openings that people simply aren't applying for, it's not a question of funding. They're getting too many phone calls to handle and many of those phone calls should not be going to them in the first place. What should they do?

Promoting that the nunber exists as a actual thing people should use is good, yeah.

The actual number isn't so important, though. If ever needed to call the non-emergency number I'd search it up, which fortunately I can do given I've got loads of time because it's not an emergency.

Just because you supposedly read the article, doesn’t dismiss our concerns.

the AI system would interact only with nonemergency callers and that emergency calls to 911 would be routed only to human dispatchers

Who makes this determination?

Have many emergencies that aren't transferred does there have to be before it's unacceptable? I'd say if one person calls with an emergency, gets AI, and doesn't get transferred, then the entire system is failed and someone should go to jail.

What is wrong with the current setup? I bet a person can direct non emergency traffic faster than any AI, because they can actually comprehend a person and think. It's not broken, someone is just about to make a fuck load of money at the expense of people not getting through to emergency services.

It's not an emergency if it can wait 15 minutes. So the line just doesn't work for its intended purpose. That's extraordinary failure.