A message from Orleans Parish Communication District Executive Director Karl Fasold regarding the highly inaccurate Shreveport Times article on New Orleans 911’s usage of AI:
The Orleans Parish Communication District (OPCD), the agency responsible for New Orleans 9-1-1 and 3-1-1, is deeply disappointed in the highly inaccurate article posted by the Shreveport Times late on August 6, “New Orleans will use AI to answer 911 calls instead of a human.”
OPCD has used an AI triage tool for the past two years only for a very narrow category of incoming 911 calls involving auto crashes. This AI tool is only used when all call-takers are busy with other callers, and the incoming call originates from within a 200-meter radius of a already-reported vehicle crash.
OPCD’s AI call triage tool is NOT used in this manner for *any* other 911 calls, and has guardrails in place to ensure that the default behavior is to send the call to a human if it does not meet the specific use case it was designed for. The failure of the Shreveport Times article to make this distinction gives the overall impression that the AI tool is being used as a blanket replacement for human calltakers. The reporter in the Shreveport Times article did not contact us to discuss the story, and the reporter’s story as published on 8/6 gives no attribution or sourcing for the inaccurate claims made within.
Every 911 center in the country is dealing with the reality of tighter budgets and inability to reach full staffing even with funding to do so. We have found this AI triage tool, used specifically for the scenario outlined above involving motor vehicle accidents, to be an extremely positive use of the technology to make the best use of our staff’s very limited time. Minutes matter when responding to 911 emergencies, and our use of the tool in the very limited way outlined above has been a success. We have not used it for any other category of 911 calls, and will not do so until and unless we can ensure its functionality. We will continue to study and utilize AI as a tool to assist our personnel as appropriate.
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Media contact: OPCD PIO Jay Vise, [email protected]