I absolutely do have an idea how well it’ll be able to do the job, based on AI’s past performances in basically every other area, knowing its strong and weak points and knowing the job very well myself. Obviously I don’t know for sure, but I’m not hopeful!

Not to mention the rich people who’s pockets will get further lined with your tax dollars for their horseshit AI dispatcher!

So they have money to spend on AI that will absolutely not be able to do the job half as well as a human, but not any money to spend on humans. Got it

That… doesn’t answer my question at all. Why is the AI specifically required? How is it an improvement over making the job more attractive to humans and getting more of them to do the job instead?

Where I work we take both non and emergency calls, and have a separate number for each. The phone system we use will make sure the emergency calls come through first, so it’s not uncommon to have zero emergency calls queueing while the non-emergency queue sits at 10-20 minutes (just like any other call centre, we have the boards up on the wall showing the stats).

It seems like this AI thing is trying to solve the problem of people calling the emergency number for a call that doesn’t need an emergency response, which is super common. Either people don’t know about the non-emergency line, or they think the non-emergency line is for other people and calling the emergency line will get their issue sorted faster. The first kind are usually very apologetic when you ask them to call the non-emergency, the second kind will argue with you and we’re instructed to just hang up on them after repeating the instruction to keep the emergency queue free.

The thing is, anyone with half a brain can identify a non-emergency call within max 2 minutes. It’s probably the easiest part of the whole job. But it definitely requires a human, because people will call up shouting and screaming like they’re mid-way through getting stabbed, when really they’re just a grumpy old fuck who’s neighbours are playing rap music. And on the flip side, plenty of people are able to make a full-on emergency call in an almost spookily calm tone, and even more so if they’re not directly involved (Common example is a teacher or social worker calling something in a child’s disclosed to them about their parents). So being able to read between the lines in a way humans are very good at, but robots are not, is obviously super important.

When the operator identifies the call as a non-emergency (which takes an absolute maximum of 2 minutes, even for very complicated calls), they simply say “please call the non-emergency line on XXX, thanks, bye”. Why is the AI required?

I agree that people shouldn’t be calling the emergency line with rubbish, but unfortunately they do, because the non-emergency line isn’t as well publicized and even if they do know about it people think that “non-emergency” means “we can’t be bothered dealing with it” and so calling the emergency line somehow means their issue will be taken more seriously.

I’m a dispatcher (not in the USA) and our managers start flipping out and running round like their heads are on fire if the wait time reaches 30 seconds. If there’s more than 3 calls in the emergency queue then they sit down and take them themselves (If you’ve ever worked in any call centre at all, emergency or not, you’ll know shit has to really hit the fan before management will consider doing this!)

Usually high queue time/numbers are just multiple calls for the same incident (think large RTC’s or very public assaults/stabbings right in the middle of a heavily trafficked city centre) so we can get that queue down very quickly, especially as 99% of the time any call after the initial one will simply be “we’re already aware and we’ve got crews en route, bye”.

The opposite is extremely common too. People get on the phone and instantly go into raw panic mode and yell about 500 words at you before you’ve even had a chance to read your greeting. After putting down some choice words to control them a bit, you find out they found a bag of weed in their teenager’s bag or their neighbour’s playing music too loud.