Posted on 08/09/2026 3:14:56 PM PDT by Libloather
New Orleans has become the first city in the US to use artificial intelligence to answer emergency 911 calls — but critics warn it could have deadly consequences.
The Orleans Parish Communication District — which gets over a thousand emergency dials a day, in what is among the highest volume of calls in the country — is routing the 911 calls to an AI agent that decides which ones get bumped to human dispatchers and which get handled by the bot itself, according to the Shreveport Times.
“I was a 911 dispatcher for 11 years and this is the worst idea you could possibly think of,” warned an online critic using the name Boxy, who claimed to be a first responder.
The new tool, known as AI Emergency Call Triage, was first deployed in Louisiana’s largest city in late July after being tested on its 311 hotline.
The triage bot analyzes calls to prioritize which emergencies should be handled by humans, while it handles repeat calls or low-priority ones to avoid inundating dispatchers, the Times explained.
OPCD Executive Director Karl Fasold, however, emphasized that the AI is not replacing human dispatchers, and said the system will mainly be used when the caller is within roughly 200 meters of a crash that has already been reported and when all human call-takers are busy, according to local CBS News affiliate WWL-TV.
Critics, nonetheless, fear it could have deadly consequences.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Does it have an Indian accent?
In NOLA I’d trust a machine over a local most of the time. My interactions with people there have left me unimpressed.
In the following video clip (1:25), Engvall talks about the automating of customer service. At about the 0:57 mark, he expands that to automating 911.
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
It’s called The Big Easy for a reason.
Lazy folks.
Quick story - git sent to a hotel to help in the accounting office. Tried to pay the occupancy taxes and their electronic payment system never worked and they don’t take checks.
Called and called and sent emails. Nothing.
After I was finished I read an article stating the Parrish was “going after” hotels that didn’t pay them. Every hotel they interviewed told them what I described.
The Parrish shut up.
I use AI every day and I am fairly familiar with New Orleans given that one time it was my favorite US City to Visit. But, no more.
I am quite certain that AI will be more responsive than a typical woke New Orleans staff person/human and will make “less” mistakes just answering the blankety blank phone. Then, if all AI has to do is sort REAL EMERGENCIES from BS, I think it will make “less” mistakes and be done quicker.
New Orleans governmental personnel are not known for their “Excellence”. So, I believe that “sorting” low emergency incoming calls from REAL EMERGENCIES will work better than the present day system
If info at the above is accurate, the article explains a lot.
“New Orleans becomes first major US city to use AI for 911 calls: ‘The worst idea you could think of’”
...not compared to the alternative.
This line is said by the computer named HAL 9000 to the astronaut Dave Bowman in the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick.
In New Orleans the police are called NOPD.
When you call NOPD, they tell you, that’s Not Our Problem, Dude.
I hope when AI determines humans are useless they are nice about it.
Robocop bump
“New Orleans has become the first city in the US to use artificial intelligence to answer emergency 911 calls”. Oh no, didn’t AI invent something called the WNBA?
Well, we all KNOW that George Bush HATES black people, so this is probably why. *SNORT*
God Bless your Misses! That is a rare skill set to have these days!
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