¿Qué pasó? Baltimore deploys AI to decode 911 calls

A new artificial intelligence (AI) platform is looking to revolutionize the arguably archaic emergency communications sector. But is AI really the answer?

The City of Baltimore 911 Call and Dispatch Center has announced that they will be using a new platform to help them answer some 3,500 911 calls they get daily.

The AI company Prepared envisions reshaping an arguably archaic public safety system in which valuable, lifesaving data is sometimes lost in translation.

As AI is the new buzzword, companies and organizations are looking to “optimize” their processes using AI.

While this may sound like a novel idea, there is room for error, as artificial intelligence is known to be biased and even hallucinate at the best of times.

It all started with mass shootings

Prepared is yet another platform that promises to solve a problem using artificial intelligence. It may well aid tired and stressed 911 operators when they need it most — at least that’s the aim.

Michael Chime and co-founders Dylan Gleicher and Neal Soni founded Prepared to improve public safety. After growing up around many school shootings, the trio wanted to improve school safety, in particular.

In 2012, Chime, Gleicher, and Soni witnessed the fallout from the Chardon High School shooting in Ohio, where a former student shot six students, which resulted in three fatalities.

“As for Gleicher and Soni, they grew up less than 15 minutes from Sandy Hook Elementary in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, where 20 first-graders and six school staffers were killed that same year,” Chime told Cybernews.

The trio saw a gap in the market – a gap between communities and 911 operators.

“Despite 85% of the 240 million 911 calls per year originating from mobile devices, 911 technology is still built as if they're coming from landlines,” Chime told Cybernews.

While anyone can just slap the AI-enabled label on anything and call it innovation, I was interested in learning more about how Prepared actually worked and whether it's actually safe.

How Prepared works

Prepared claims that its technology can transcribe calls, which can then be translated. Those who call 911 in certain states where Prepared is enabled can also show their surroundings via video and pictures to maximize situational awareness.

“With critical information identified faster, emergency response moves faster. With the ability to better understand the caller’s perspective via media and text, emergency response is more accurate,” Chime told Cybernews

Oh, did I mention that the Prepared platform can translate from English to Spanish (and vice versa) via two-way audio language translation?

That means if non-native English speakers are speaking into a device, Prepared’s AI platform will translate it into English. The person on the other end can then speak, which will be translated into Spanish for the caller to understand.

But how is AI used in this context? Well, Chime told Cybernews that Prepared’s AI is trained on non-emergency calls, and when the model is ready, it moves “into live 911 calls with robust fallback plans.”

It’s unknown whether people in the community know that their non-emergency calls are being used to train an AI model. Furthermore, Prepared’s AI is used to create transcripts of calls, translate audio, and summarize calls, each of which can have its own set of problems.

Even top players like Apple can’t seem to summarize texts properly, as summaries created by Apple Intelligence are often incorrect. So, who’s to say that using AI in a lifesaving context will be foolproof?

Can AI be used in public safety?

While finding innovative ways to optimize infrastructure in the name of safety is all well and good, employing technology that is new and, arguably, hasn’t been fine-tuned might not be the solution.

In fact, many people don’t even trust AI.

One survey reported by Forbes showed that 67% of people wouldn’t want AI to make life-or-death decisions in combat, they wouldn’t want an AI judge to charge perpetrators with a crime, and they wouldn’t trust AI to fly an airplane.

According to that survey, people are still skeptical of AI, and when presented with scenarios that affect them personally, they’d much prefer a human to take control.

Another potential pitfall is the issue of transcribing using AI. Forbes reported on the advantages and disadvantages of using AI in transcription.

Yes, AI can transcribe at lightning speed, which is great for a high-pressure situation such as a 911 call. However, accuracy levels, particularly with recordings featuring background noise or audio recordings with different dialects and accents, may prove troublesome.

If there’s background noise or the speaker isn’t properly articulating each word with precision, then AI can interpret a completely different set of words.

So, if you’re in a dangerous scenario, like a school shooting, will AI be able to interpret or transcribe what you’re saying over the chaos?

Prepared’s AI platform claims to translate incoming and outgoing messages in over one hundred languages and has the ability to translate transcripts in over 30 languages.

The platform claims to have seen 911 call processing time reductions by 50% and Spanish language calls being reduced from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.

Prepared’s AI platform is currently working across 49 states in the US and secured $27 million in funding just last year.