UK Police To Trial AI 'Agents' Responding To Non-Emergency Calls (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0180219671
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/26/2344228/uk-police-to-trial-ai-agents-responding-to-non-emergency-calls
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgq03y0l3yo
> Call-handling agents powered by AI are to be [1]trialled by Staffordshire Police in a bid to cut waiting times for the non-emergency 101 service. The force is set to become the third in the country to take part in the scheme testing the use of artificial "agents" to deal with calls. Under the system, the AI agent would deal with simple queries like requests for information without the need for human involvement, freeing up call handlers and reducing answering times.
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> Acting Chief Constable Becky Riggs confirmed the force would be looking to launch the AI pilot early in the new year. "It's a piece of technology called Agentforce. It will help with our response to the public, which historically we know we haven't done well." The senior officer said that sometimes people are not calling to report a crime, but want more information, which the technology could help with. However, if the system detects keywords suggesting vulnerability or risk or emergency, then it will be able to divert the call to a human being.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgq03y0l3yo
Fails From Australia (Score:3)
The so called AI could not understand Scottish or some heavy accents. 2) Human, Operator and 00000's removed so you were in a phone hell loop 3) Unnecessary delay, keywords like Heart attack, car accident, critical, doctor, and barely audible help not escalated. 4) Outsourced, when service levels dropped below standard, the outsourced company got is own people to call in to bump up numbers and fudge performance statistics 5) Dont expect 000 or 911 to actually work, an outage caused by production non-testing caused 4 deaths. 6) Former call operators were 100% not asked to review or score the new system, or do any testing, just a cold switchover. 7) The list goes on. No automatic language detection. 8) redundant questions, like fire ambulance or police, when ambulance and heart attack were in the first ten words.
Re: (Score:2)
> The so called AI could not understand Scottish or some heavy accents. 2) Human, Operator and 00000's removed so you were in a phone hell loop 3) Unnecessary delay, keywords like Heart attack, car accident, critical, doctor, and barely audible help not escalated. 4) Outsourced, when service levels dropped below standard, the outsourced company got is own people to call in to bump up numbers and fudge performance statistics 5) Dont expect 000 or 911 to actually work, an outage caused by production non-testing caused 4 deaths. 6) Former call operators were 100% not asked to review or score the new system, or do any testing, just a cold switchover. 7) The list goes on. No automatic language detection. 8) redundant questions, like fire ambulance or police, when ambulance and heart attack were in the first ten words.
After listening to some 911 calls, I wonder how the AI system handles panicked calls. Sometimes the human operator has to do some serious calming of the caller to get anything intelligible out of the person making the call.
Re: (Score:3)
This is supposed to be for NON-emergency calls. Not comparable to 911.
The service is useless already (Score:5, Insightful)
Phone 101 and you'll be lucky if anyone bothers to answer before you get a message saying to contact via social media or email or die of old age, so what do people do? They phone the emergency 999 number and clog it up. Though if someone has just stolen your car or chucked a brick through your window its an emergency for you.
Re: The service is useless already (Score:2)
See I am the sort of person that would call 101 for those things. Neither is life threatening so not an emergency as far as I am aware. Problem is unless they have access to an AI agent I am not aware of it is going to be so fucking useless 999 becomes the only option to get any help.
Comment (Score:2)
Hello, this is your slashdot comment. Just interact with it like you normally would.
simple (Score:2)
Easy to train. Just say "uh huh....uh huh...Ok, we don't care."
Re: simple (Score:2)
But am I bothered?
Very concerning news. (Score:1)
This might mean that not enough cases are routinely mishandled? Will nobody think of the humble British bobby-on-the-beat and his rep for corruption, racism, sexism, domestic violence &c &c?
Put them on trial? (Score:2)
I thought they were going to put the AI agents on trial. I am disappointed reading that this is not the case.
UK arrests 30 people a day for speech (Score:5, Insightful)
[1]12000 Brits arrested per year over social media posts [dailytelegraph.co.nz]
> In 2023 alone, officers from 37 police forces made 12,183 arrests - around 33 per day. The Times said this marks a 58% increase from 2019, when 7,734 arrests were recorded.
A significant portion of /. posts on any political topic would get you arrested in UK. Because of that, I don't think UK qualifies as a Western Democracy anymore.
[1] https://dailytelegraph.co.nz/world/12000-brits-arrested-per-year-over-social-media-posts/
Re: (Score:1)
But at least you can get curry now.
Seriously, the social fabric of the entire country is ruined, but the food is great! :/ The sun as truly set on the British Empire. Same with France, Germany, and heck, even Japan is starting to notice diversity is not a strength. When was the last time a general said "We need a DIVERSIFIED front".. Even parents are told they need to be unified.
That's the sort of comment that would get you a knock at the door at 6AM in the UK and Germany.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a "diverse" group than an inherent part of diversity is that some of the group will disagree with diversity and even be hostile to the greater good of the group.
There are many who perceive countries that welcome immigrants to be gullible idiots that they can take advantage of, and will take advantage while it's beneficial to them and then quickly abandon that country if it's no longer to their advantage.
So you can only benefit from limited diversity, the members of the group must still have comm
Re: (Score:2)
"There are many who perceive countries that welcome immigrants to be gullible idiots that they can take advantage of"
And they'd be correct.
Re: (Score:1)
There is no group if the members are "diverse". If you try to create a "diverse" group you end up with multiple groups forced together who disagree about what the group is and what it's going to be doing.
Which is largely what you see in the UK, where the different types of "diversity" are creating their own enclaves where they don't have to interact with each other. Except the government takes money from one group and gives it to all the others.
This inevitably leads to breakdown and collapse.
Re: (Score:2)
"Japan is starting to notice diversity is not a strength"
Japan never fell for that multi culti BS propaganda in the first place. Its a very racially homogenous country and all the better for it.
Re: (Score:1)
Just so we're clear, they have more arrests for speech, expressed opinions and unexpressed opinions (failure to visibly express a correct opinion in certain settings, i.e. people getting arrested for silently standing alone next to abortion clinics doing absolutely nothing but) than Russia and China for these kinds of offenses COMBINED.
Oh wait, that was previous decade. 2023 numbers suggests it was over five times combined China and Russia, and UK trend is upwards.
Most recent reporting suggests that UK may
Re: (Score:3)
> UK is self evidently not a liberal democracy (which I assume is what you refer to when you call it "Western Democracy").
UK have fallen. Freedom of speech is foundational principle. More so, what actually happening in UK is very one-sided and weaponized against opponents of UK government and its policies. They are not arresting people for calling Nigel Farage a nazi or threatening Brexit supporters with violence.
Re: (Score:2)
Only when little are against right wing policies.
When people are attacking from the right, e.g. immigrant haters and farmers opposed to tax, the government is very very light touch.
Farage is busy inciting race riots where convicted domestic abusers attack the police and they're are hardly any arrests. But against hold up the wrong cardboard sign...
Re: (Score:2)
> Just so we're clear, they have more arrests for speech, expressed opinions and unexpressed opinions (failure to visibly express a correct opinion in certain settings, i.e. people getting arrested for silently standing alone next to abortion clinics doing absolutely nothing but) than Russia and China for these kinds of offenses COMBINED.
> Oh wait, that was previous decade. 2023 numbers suggests it was over five times combined China and Russia, and UK trend is upwards.
> Most recent reporting suggests that UK may have climbed to having over 100 times arrests than China for free speech related offenses alone.
> Not per capita. Arrests in total. Those two have a combined population that's over twenty times that of UK.
Not to stand up for the UK - which seems to be attempting to emulate 1984, just 40 years too late - but trying to show Russia and China as shining beacons of free speech isn't a very good comparison. Vladimir doesn't always arrest people who dare to speak, sometimes they just fall out of windows onto the street. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
I take it that death for saying the wrong thing isn't what you advocate for?
But to the topic at hand, a 911 system based on AI instead of actual intelligenc
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_assassinations
Re: (Score:1)
While the whole "GRU/KGB dealt with it" aspect is real, it's so rare that it makes headlines every time. It's also worth noting that this is rarely if ever for "speech" reasons. Most of it is standard Russian Mafia style "you got our money/you betrayed loyalty" internal fighting. It doesn't really concern general public. They just don't rank high enough to warrant that level of attention.
It's the same thing how Chinese billionaires occasionally vanish for "re-education". Not really relevant for general publ
Re: (Score:2)
Agree, they have tucked the Harry Miller won appeal behind by word salad. Also the is a code of conduct where your lawyer or solicitor cannot ask questions or represent you fully by subpoenaing ALL the evidence, and full discovery is limited. That is code for saying you will NOT receive a fair trial. If you live in the UK please visit [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] so you can decide who NOT to vote for. One does not think there is an American site that does the same job, nor highlight broken election pr
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheyWorkForYou
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think UK qualifies as a Western Democracy anymore.
It's historically a representative democracy, but the representation has been corrupted by outside influence, including political parties,
and has thus fallen to despotism.