Fairfax Co. pilots AI for nonemergency 911 calls

Fairfax County Virginia is testing the use of artificial intelligence to triage nonemergency calls with the hope of getting residents and visitors experiencing an urgent situation through to a call taker faster The county in recent months activated the AI mechanism for about two hours and it handled almost calls according to Dru Clarke assistant director of operations with Fairfax County Artificial intelligence stories OpenAI and Meta say they re fixing AI chatbots to better respond to teens in distress Letting us learn how to use it instead of hiding it away Prince William Co schools readies students to use AI Artificial intelligence could hire you Now it could also fire you In the first phase of the plan the AI helps filter and handle nonemergency calls that don t have the need for a dispatch As part of a second phase planned for later this year the mechanism will help with calls that do require a nonemergency dispatch The county s call center handles over a million calls each year Clarke commented and of those calls are for nonemergencies The same professional that s handling the calls are handling the nonemergency calls as well and so if they re tied up on a nonemergency call that means that the line could possibly be holding which we never want Clarke reported During the latest trial the AI understood English and Spanish It connected callers to necessary county agencies and the county explained specific people got a text message to document an issue online In the second phase the AI will understand and respond to the top five spoken languages in the county Clarke stated The apparatus can handle calls for things such as locating a towed car or getting a police account from an situation that happened a limited days prior In certain cases callers didn t realize they were speaking to AI Clarke declared The nonemergency line is like a potpourri of everything Google related Clarke commented When the call volume for emergencies spikes Clarke noted nonemergency callers could sometimes be on hold for three to minutes and that is frustrating for our society members That was really the catalyst to implement this scheme At any point Clarke stated callers can ask the machinery to be connected to a real person and it will add the call to the queue There will be zero downtime on the call line if this agent can handle all of the nonemergency calls and that really is improving the safety and shield of Fairfax County residents and visitors Clarke announced Phase two which Clarke declared is scheduled for later this year will involve the machinery handling calls that involve a dispatch That can be graffiti on the side of the road or a tree down something that requires a citizens safety response but not a response Clarke revealed The AI isn t replacing dispatchers Clarke declared adding that nearby Arlington uses similar innovation There s still a human component to dealing with people in situation especially on the line Clarke noted Source