In the coming weeks, the Scottsdale Police Department plans to go live with a phone system aided by artificial intelligence to handle non-emergency calls.
The goal behind having AI made by Motorola take certain calls to Scottsdale police is to free up human dispatchers to focus on emergencies.
“I think it's just that as the years have gone on we’ve become more and more busy. And the phone just rings. I mean we just have a bit of an increase every year,” said Karen Sutherland, the city's deputy director of communications.
AI will help people file reports online, request that an officer call them back and answer general questions.
“What we really want to do is give options to callers that they may not have known existed,” she said
Sutherland also said those still wanting to speak with a dispatcher will be transferred to one.
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Runway 3/21 will be closed for six nights starting Oct. 18 and will be fully closed starting Oct. 24, before reopening at noon on Oct. 31. Crews will seal the pavement and scrap-off built up rubber from tires in the landing zones. -
Desert Design kicks off this week with a variety of speaking events, exhibits, and gatherings. This year, its theme is "Collected in Dialog." -
The Scottsdale Unified School District’s governing board voted 3-2 to close two more schools Tuesday night. The district’s enrollment has declined by 26% since 2010. -
Scottsdale currently has 85 license plate readers, data is kept for about six months and the program costs about $280,000 a year. -
Scottsdale has 85 license plate readers, the city keeps data for about six months and the program costs about $280,000 a year.
