The Santa Maria Police Department is planning to adopt an AI-dispatch system for its non-emergency line.
The City Council voted Tuesday to award a contract to Hyper, a company owned by Motorola Solutions.
The Lompoc Police Department began using the same company to handle its non-911 calls back in February.
Santa Maria Police Chief Christopher Williams told the council that the system has benefits over a human dispatcher.
For example, if every Santa Maria resident decided at once to contact the police, “they could all call at one time and be handled and be communicating with this AI technology,” Williams said.
The cost of Hyper’s product will add up to $304,996, according to the company’s proposal.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Council Member Gloria Soto asked if the system could make errors.
Williams acknowledged that it could, but mentioned that other cities have successfully used the system.
“It can detect if a person is stressed,” he said. “If it hears commotion or violence in the background, it'll immediately transfer that and give it a priority to a live communications dispatcher.”
Williams also clarified that the service is meant to supplement human dispatchers, and not replace them.
According to a proposal document created by Hyper, the company does not use customer data to train its AI models.
