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What happens when they can only respond to N calls at a time, but have 2N routinely coming in, 2N-1 of which are false positives? They can’t respond to them all
by avidphantasm 4y ago
What happens when they can only respond to N calls at a time, but have 2N routinely coming in, 2N-1 of which are false positives? They can’t respond to them all. At some point systems like this will unwittingly DOS the 911/first responder situation.
- brazzy 4y agoYes, of course the false positives can become so frequent that it's not tolerable. But that absolutely does not mean that allowing none at all is a sensible goal, because that invariably means more false negatives. And the article does not sound like the false positives are at the intolerable level, in the opinion of the people actually affected.
- avidphantasm 4y agoBut your original comment doesn’t acknowledge the limits on ability to respond. Yes of course in the abstract they would rather respond to all false alarms so as to not miss true alarms, but there’s always a limit. This is why fire departments charge for false alarms. When I worked at my university after graduating, we had a string of false alarms from the data center, and at some point the city allegedly started charging for them. I see no reason not to bill Apple if a jurisdiction has a similar policy already in place.
- brazzy 4y ago> But your original comment doesn’t acknowledge the limits on ability to respond. It also doesn't say that false positives are irrelevant, just that eliminating them should not be the highest priority. Because the comment I was replying to stated that "the bar should be incredibly high, which would mean that it's basically impossible to hook up automated systems to the emergency services line."
- ahepp 4y agoWell, it seems like the problem could be solved by treating “normal” 911 calls normally, and attending to automated calls on a “best effort” basis.