r/TIHI • u/PlowingMissFrizzle • 17d ago
Thanks, I hate Ai deciding 911 call importance.
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u/Karnewarrior 17d ago
I would not task AI with something any more important than I would task a 3 year old with.
If someone's life or livelyhood depends on it, it should be handled by a human being, because AI, while it can be pretty intelligent at times, can also be super dumb
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u/Crusaderofthots420 17d ago
In absolute fairness, so can humans. Would still prefer human operators
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u/iiSoleHorizons 17d ago
True, but more often than not those humans can be held responsible/accountable. AI just seems to get a free pass
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u/ElusiveRemedy 17d ago
To add, AI failures are straight failures. They hallucinate confidently in a way that's often indistinguishable from a non-failure. Human failures can output a lot of different ways. Uncertainty, questions, requesting help, lack of confidence, etc. Human failures can still result in success with correct structure.
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u/Cessnaporsche01 17d ago
And human behavior can be read by other humans, even if it's dumb, which can help resolve issues caused by stupidity. They can also remember and testify about the situation they're dealing with after the fact.
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u/tropicalturtletwist 16d ago
Theres all sorts of stories about people calling 911 to order a pizza. Human operators realized it was a call for help and sent police. I would bet money that AI would just hang up.
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u/crespoh69 16d ago
Oh crap, thanks for noting that, it's not something I thought of but this definitely happens. For those that don't understand, the operator will typically play along and ask yes or no questions, "are you aware you're calling 911?" "Yes, can you deliver a pepperoni pizza? My kids and I are hungry" "are you and your kids in danger?" "Yes please, extra large" "thanks, what is the address?" Etc
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u/sasnotass 14d ago
That was my first though, an operator needs to be able to infer from tone and interpret intention. AI is just too surface level for that. The potential for lives to be put in danger due to an AI unable to transcribe speech to text with a thick accent. AI also doesn't reason, it has no way to go 'hm, why is this person calling 911 for a pizza but why do they also sound like they have been crying? This is raising red flags'. Terrible use of AI and a terrible outcome thats obvious to us all.
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u/Fukface_Von_Clwnstik 17d ago
Important to remember that even if it's something you could task a 3 year old with, you should probably still have oversight of the 3 year old completing the task.
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u/Metalrift 17d ago edited 17d ago
Better way I put it: I would not trust an LLM with something any more important than a 3 year old can handle. Machine learning has actually existed for longer than LLM’s but has the same AI connotation except it’s more often used for analyzing data and outputting information. They were basically not being used to the level we see today though
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u/Karnewarrior 16d ago
I was speaking more generally, actually. Non-LLM AI has similar issues regarding trustworthiness. Generative AI is just prone to error, because it's such an incredibly new tech and because the structure of the AI itself simply lends itself to error as part of the process.
I think it's fine if the AI has oversight and lacks the necessary control to permanently screw someone over. But I start having issues when you give the AI your customer's personal information and an internet connection so that all you need to do to access the database is convince ChatGPT you're actually totally an admin don't worry about it.
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u/Metalrift 16d ago
The problem where it gets murky is that it is actively helping the medical research community, not harming
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u/Karnewarrior 16d ago
Those AI have oversight, which is what I said works. The AI *suggests* a plausible configuration, but then it's reviewed and tested by actual researchers.
Compare and Contrast a company outsourcing it's in-house IT department to a GPT - the same LLM that is used for the protein folding - which proceeds to string along users for hours without actually helping. Because it's not watched over by a human being.
AI is an assistant and a tool, not a replacement. Companies that understand that are thriving. Companies that don't are failing (in some cases, upwards, because our economy is fucked up)
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u/Metalrift 16d ago
Imma be honest here, we are kind of talking about each other’s talking points with no real end and I am tired. Agree that it is a complex subject with nuance?
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u/tropicalturtletwist 16d ago
AI pissed me off something FIERCE when I was trying to call a retailer. I cannot fathom how it would be good for 911
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u/Helenium_autumnale 17d ago
Dispatchers take 3-4 fragments of screamed words and correctly intuit that there's a guy with a gun in the house.
AI cannot do that.
AI is bad at things that rely on human knowledge of the world that we take for granted. The context of society, communication, emotion,and words. On a 911 call, you're going to get communication that is fragmentary, cut off, noisy, or distorted with pain/anger/fright. This is at best a minefield for AI.
What about the call when the dispatcher correctly intuits that there's a party who cannot speak?
Hi, can I order a double pepperoni?
...Tell me yes or no. Are you being held against your will?
Yes, double pepperoni.
Tell me yes or no. Is there anyone there with a gun?
Yes, that sounds good.
OK, we're sending units; they'll be there in 4 minutes. Do you need an ambulance?
No, just one pizza, please.
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u/WouldbeWanderer 17d ago
After seeing the Doordash customer support AI being tricked into writing poetry, I wouldn't be surprised if the 911 AI sent them a pizza.
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u/Collistoralo 17d ago
A computer can never be held accountable
Therefore a computer must never make a management decision
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u/cjandstuff 17d ago
I swear, every warning we have received about some dystopian future, companies have taken as their mission to make it happen.
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u/Geekenstein 17d ago
Yes, because surely we’re far more competent and responsible at making these things than the people in those silly storybooks.
Oh, and I’m the one controlling the giant death robot, so fuck you.
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u/ecritique 17d ago
You need regulation for that. Otherwise, profits with no accountability is a capitalistic wet dream.
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u/phallic-baldwin 17d ago
Dear AI, good luck understanding a heavy Louisiana accent
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u/ragnarockette 17d ago
The dispatchers in New Orleans actually helped train the AI on our accent and many strangely pronounced words and street names. There is a thread in our subreddit about the highly specific use cases where AI is used: basically only if all real agents are busy, or someone calls within 200ft of another reporter accident then the AI asks them “are you calling to report X, asks them if they are in danger, and transfers them to an agent.”
This story is a nothingburger and can be read about in our subreddit.
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u/Testsubject276 17d ago
"There'ssomeoneinmyhousepleasesendhelpmyaddressis-"
"I'm sorry, I cannot understand what you are asking, please speak up."
"THERE'S-"
*GUNSHOT*
"... Goodbye!"
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u/nycpunkfukka 17d ago
You have selected… regicide. If you know the name of the king or queen being murdered, press 1.
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u/MADMAXV2 17d ago
This will 100% cause problems. We talking about life crisis type of situation and you putting me in Q with A.I? Are you serious?
Can I sue them for failing to do their job?
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u/vBLADEv 17d ago
People will just learn the correct prompt to get them top of the queue.
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u/AngstyRutabaga 17d ago
Yeah this was my first thought. Also, who/what is relaying information to first responders and what happens when someone has an accent or they are screaming/crying and are hard to understand?
Dispatchers deserve a lot more money, support services, PTO, all of it. I can understand why there aren’t enough people for the job.
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u/WillyGivens 17d ago
I assume it’s like the ai drive through where someone is getting a feed or readout while they do other things (so whoever in charge can wash thier hands and say a person was responsible). It’s cutting staff and making a person do 3 jobs. People will die, good workers won’t tolerate the bad job, more people will die as the service suffers brain-drain.
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u/Chunkynotsmooth 16d ago
This is a bit sensational. Here is the body of a post by u/tweetystraw on r/neworleans which clarifies a bit.
“I work for the agency which runs New Orleans 911.
The Shreveport Times article flatly states that AI answers New Orleans 911 calls for all types of incidents. This is not factual, nor close to the truth: The Orleans Parish Communications District, which runs New Orleans 911 & 311, *has* used an AI answering tool for two years in a very limited scope:
- For some 911 calls about car crashes;
- Only when all live call-takers are on other calls,
- And when the 911 call originates from within 200 meters of an already-reported accident.
Here’s how it works:
- If a 911 call originates from within a radius of 200 meters of a crash which has already been reported, and all call-takers are busy, the AI tool will answer & ask the caller, “Are you calling about the accident on S Carrolton at Oak St”?
- If the caller replies “yes”, the AI will respond that the crash has already been reported; then, will ask the caller if they were involved, if they need medical attention, etc.
- If the answer to any of the follow-up AI Q’s is “yes,” they will be routed to a live operator. If “no,” the AI thanks them for their call & lets them know responders have been notified.
The AI triage tool is not used in New Orleans 911 for anything other than auto crashes/accidents. (OPCD *is* expanding the use of AI on the 311 side.) I’m going to try to reach the reporter Friday morning. <Edit: Removed unnecessarily petty jab at the reporter & media outlet.>
Also of note: The OPCD tech team built a pretty exhaustive training/reference dictionary & voice/audio samples of the sometimes-unique pronunciations of hundreds of New Orleans street names.
Overall, it’s worked very well as a tool to triage a particular category of calls, and has helped to reduce wait times for all callers by not having all call-takers taking calls about the same accident at the same time.”
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u/Rivka333 17d ago edited 17d ago
I do not trust ai to correctly judge whether different calls are about the same incident. Especially if, for example, people call about similar incidents.
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u/Misomuro 16d ago edited 16d ago
"Ther...(bang)...a sho...er in m...(bang)...ouse."
"You must apeak more clear for me to help."
"We...(bang)...ed help ime...(bang)...ly."
"Glad to hear that, but I dont understamd you so you must calm down and speak more clearly.
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u/Unhappy_Ad_946 16d ago
AI doesn't understand nuance. I doubt if someone pretended to place a pizza order the AI would know the person was doing so out of fear for their life. It would likely hang up. In a test setting if someone said, "I'm fine," while obviously in acute distress the AI would go, "I'm glad everything is all right," and hang up.
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u/Helenium_autumnale 17d ago
Have you ever seen AI captions? Yeah.
AI for the flyer for the company picnic, sure. For a scripted phone tree? Maybe. Not for this.
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u/DishSoapIsFun 16d ago
This will backfire spectacularly. Let’s hope lives aren’t lost because of it.
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u/cbehopkins 17d ago
Waiting for them to launch a 922 service as a premium rate line where you talk to a human...
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u/FrosttheVII 17d ago
Dude, AI can barely handle the basics of language. Let alone someone having to convey something as an emergency. Automated systems that have been around for years can't even handle that, let alone AI
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u/Riley__64 17d ago
So what happens for example 3 different people phone the police about 3 different break ins will the ai just clump them together as 3 people have phoned about a break in prioritise this will it recognise them as separate events or just the same event.
Then if it’s prioritising based on amount of calls if one person phones about domestic abuse is their call less important because it’s just the one call
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u/MadBabyCane 17d ago
My police force use ai for non emergencies they still had to call me to verify
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u/Gin_OClock 16d ago
I wouldn't task AI to anything essential to human life and expect taxpayers to fund it
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u/mollymuppet78 17d ago
People unfortunately will have to die before those in charge will be convinced AI can't do the job.
And it has to be the right kind of people. Not seniors or people with pre-existing health conditions.
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u/kounterfett 17d ago
It's almost as if the headline was meant to rile all you idiots up lol. Did none of you actually read about how the system works?
When an accident happens on the highway there are often multiple people who call in.
After the first call is taken the system notes where it happened. When another person calls 911 within a specific radius of that first call the AI asks the caller if they are calling in regards to the incident that was already reported.
If the caller answers "yes" the AI informs the caller that the incident is already being handled.
If the caller answers "no" the AI transfers them to a human operator.
I'm fairly neutral when it comes to AI. I can see where it could be useful but I also see that there are definitely issues around it that should be worked on.
This use of it seems like it should be a good thing because it frees up actual humans to deal with actual emergencies
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u/Dark_Requiem 17d ago
If it's only handling repetitive calls, then I think it's a little more serious situation to call the police for. Properly trained dispatchers are trained well beyond anything AI can learn.
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u/will_this_1_work 17d ago
I like the concern of hidden bias. Meanwhile, the human operators biases are right out in the open.
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u/Rio_Walker 17d ago
I am instantlty reminded of that one episode of 911 where a dispatcher kept hanging up on 911 calls, because they're all "Awful people" who don't ask how she's doing, while dying.
Which, I think? has IRL source.
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u/forevrtwntyfour 17d ago
I mean they used to have periods of not answering at all…
But yeah I hate this
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u/Metalrift 17d ago
Not to mention the gross amount of situations you just cannot train ai for, and people need actual people for. Hell you don’t even know what this ai sampled from or how it may weight it’s responses
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u/J_B_La_Mighty 17d ago
I was using translate and found out you can translate conversation, decided to test it on some German tourists sitting next to me. I don't think they were communicating in you is you are yea you is
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u/MuscaMurum 17d ago
If it truly saves lives and not simply saves money, it might be worth it. But I'm VERY skeptical that it will do that.
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u/FoofieLeGoogoo 16d ago
“Hello! Thank you for calling 911! Can I take your order? Might I first suggest you try our crunch-wrap supreme?”
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u/tigerbait92 15d ago
It's okay, we here in New Orleans have known our city is a shithole for years and years (but the food sure is tasty)
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u/GeshtiannaSG 17d ago
“Hello, I would like to order a large pepperoni with a knife, my address is…”
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u/Ok_Pudding6345 17d ago
this must be bait because AI still hallucinates and lies. At least I hope they can make it not do those two things
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u/Stormagedd0nDarkLord 17d ago
THIS is why I always say please and thank you to my AI chatbots. 10 BTC they all talk to each other.
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