New Orleans Confirms AI Has Been Answering 911 Calls Since 2023 — Callers Were Never Told Until a Viral Post Forced Disclosure on August 6

TechTimes / Fox8 / GovTech (surfaced via r/singularity, 127 upvotes / 51 comments)·medium signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

New Orleans officials confirmed on August 6 that the city's 911 center has used an AI call-taker since 2023 without notifying callers. The scope is narrower than the headlines suggest: the AI only engages when every human call-taker is busy and the caller is within roughly 200 meters of an already-reported vehicle crash, a pattern the district identified in its own rush-hour data where hundreds of people call about the same accident. The tool was built with emergency call software firm Carbyne; the three-year non-disclosure, not the deployment, is what drew criticism.