NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Later this year, the Orleans Parish Communication District will be getting assistance from artificial intelligence to help prioritize the more than one million calls the communication center receives per year.
“When we have a traffic accident on the interstate, we may get 15 911 calls at once about the same accident, but then there are other emergencies that are happening throughout the city that are unrelated to that kind of get lost,” OPCD Executive Director Tyler Morris said.
The OPCD will be the first communication center to team up with the software company Carbyne to roll out AI-enabled call triage technology.
What that means is when the technology detects a spike in calls, the system begins to triage those calls and lets the caller know the communication center is aware of the incident.
All information from the 911 calls will be collected and provided to responders, but the technology will allow the agency to receive and process the most important information first.
With AI being a fairly new technology, some are on the fence about its effectiveness, especially when it comes to emergencies.
“I feel like, specifically for 911 calls, it’s like very emotional, and they need help, and robots sometimes can’t get the message emotionally,” New Orleans resident Rachel Borland said.
However, Morris says communication centers, including his, will always be led by humans.
“We can’t technology our response to every single incident that comes into our center,” Morris said. “We have to really use a lot of context clues and background noise and put pieces together to really create the most appropriate response.”
Still, some remain hesitant even while acknowledging the strengths of AI.
“Now, would I put my own life into its hands? I’m just not sure about that, but I’m happy for things that will facilitate speed and help people’s response times go up,” New Orleans resident Jonathan Borland said.
Morris also says the center won’t be using artificial intelligence 24-7, but when they’re experiencing an influx of calls.
He’s hoping his center will be using the technology by October.
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