New Orleans is testing just how much Americans are willing to trust artificial intelligence when the stakes are considerably higher than writing an email or ordering dinner, according to the New York Post.
The city has begun allowing an AI system to field certain 911 calls, apparently making it the first major U.S. municipality to put a bot directly between emergency callers and human operators.
The idea is largely about volume. New Orleans' emergency communications center receives more than 1,000 calls on a typical day, and officials believe automation can clear some of the clutter while dispatchers concentrate on genuine emergencies.
The technology isn't supposed to take over the entire 911 operation. Instead, it can deal with situations that appear redundant or relatively routine when human operators are tied up. A flood of calls about the same already-reported car accident, for example, could potentially be filtered through the automated system rather than occupying multiple dispatchers.
The Post writes that city officials insist humans remain at the center of the operation. But skeptics say emergency calls are precisely the kind of messy, unpredictable interactions computers may struggle to interpret.
People dialing 911 aren't reading from scripts. They may be terrified, whispering, intoxicated, injured, confused or speaking through heavy background noise. In some situations, callers intentionally conceal what's happening because another person is nearby.
One online critic who identified himself as a former 911 dispatcher called the experiment “the worst idea you could possibly think of,” arguing that experienced operators routinely listen for clues beyond the caller's literal words.
That concern becomes more significant given the continuing reliability problems surrounding conversational AI. Voice models can confidently produce incorrect information, while cybersecurity researchers have shown that specially constructed audio can sometimes manipulate AI systems into behaving in unintended ways.
New Orleans isn't alone in bringing algorithms into emergency services. Atlanta uses AI technology to assist operators in locating callers, while Seattle has used automated tools to help sort medical calls by urgency. The distinction is that New Orleans appears to be going further by allowing AI to actually interact with some people dialing 911.
Officials believe safeguards, human supervision and strict limits on when the system is activated can make the technology useful without handing emergency response over to a machine.
It's an ambitious experiment, although perhaps an uncomfortable one: the next time somebody calls 911 in New Orleans, the first voice answering may not belong to a person at all.
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/12/2026 - 18:50Authored by Allan Stein via The Epoch Times,
An illegal immigrant from Mexico has pleaded guilty in federal court to charges related to purchasing 91 firearms and 40,000 rounds of ammunition.
A sign displaying "No firearms in Mexico" its outside a border entry point in Naco, Ariz., on March 5, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch TimesThe U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon announced on Aug. 10 that Samuel Rodrigo Melo Santos pleaded guilty to being an alien in possession of a firearm and making false statements in the acquisition of a firearm.
Authorities said Melo Santos illegally entered the United States through Arizona in May 2024 but was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol and deported to Mexico.
He later illegally re-entered at an unknown date and location.
Between May 2024 and July 2025, Melo Santos purchased 91 firearms for $56,448, along with 40,000 rounds of ammunition, for illegal resale, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said one of the firearms was later recovered in Mexico.
"This criminal illegal alien from Mexico pleaded guilty to buying more than 90 guns and 40,000 rounds of ammunition so he could illegally resell them," a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.
"Once his sentence is complete, [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] will remove him from our country."
Melo Santos was arrested by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) on Dec. 16, 2025, before being transferred to U.S. Marshals Service custody.
The investigation was led by ATF, with assistance from ICE Homeland Security Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Harper is prosecuting the case.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 2,227 seizures involving firearms and ammunition have occurred so far in 2026. The agency reported 2,997 such seizures in 2025 and 4,932 in 2024.
In 2026, CBP has intercepted 1,447 handguns and 688 explosives. In 2025, the agency took 2,487 handguns and 473 explosives, compared with 2,299 handguns and 1,816 explosives in 2024.
In February, ATF reported that since Jan. 20, 2025, it had seized 36,277 crime guns and more than 2.3 million rounds of ammunition from prohibited individuals, including gang members and suppliers of transnational criminal organizations.
More than 4,300 of the seized firearms were bound for Mexico for alleged use by violent drug cartels and gangs.
Nearly 650,000 rounds of ammunition were also bound for Mexico - an average of more than 1,600 rounds per day, according to ATF.
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/12/2026 - 18:25