Artificial intelligence systems that monitor police and fire dispatch radio traffic have generated inaccurate emergency alerts in parts of Boulder County, raising concerns among about the reliability of automated notifications.
Residents in Longmont, Boulder and Frederick recently received alerts from third-party apps reporting fires, injuries and other incidents that officials later confirmed had not occurred. The alerts are produced by platforms that use artificial intelligence to analyze publicly available dispatch audio and automatically generate summaries and notifications for users.
One widely shared alert on Jan. 30 reported firefighters battling a “commercial blaze” in downtown Frederick. The message circulated on social media before witnesses at the location said there was no fire. Officials with the Frederick-Firestone Fire Protection District later said the alert likely resulted from an AI system misinterpreting radio traffic from a training exercise simulating a structure fire…