AI in Emergency Management: Who Owns the Decision? | Rob Borse

So AI is a force multiplier.

AI is not a, by any means, a replacement for someone's expertise, their wisdom, their experience, and their judgment.

What it can do is it can dramatically improve our ability to collect, to analyze, and to process large amounts of data and information.

But at the end of the day, AI cannot own the decision.

And spoiler alert, when you come to my talk, AI doesn't, at the end of the day, wear the white helmet.

AI doesn't explain and own that decision when things go wrong.

And the danger is the over-reliance people put on AI.

But it's very tempting because AI speaks with supreme authority

it does so it does so we essentially we accept the answer it gives us pushing back and

you don't and you know you need to trust but verify

yeah

but you know and but we don't do that often that's and that is the we get lazy

yeah

and it it speaks to the authority and we're like oh well it has to it has to be right but the age-old saying is garbage in garbage out so if ai is working on poor data it is just an algorithm that's right and it will it will It will take in this poor data.

And spit it back out.

It will spit it right back out.

So you

better be checking.

Exactly.

And, you know, you said something which I talk a lot about on the podcast and in working with our clients.

And that's about, you know, we call it human in the loop, right? It's making sure you've got that human.

human checkpoint in whatever you do.

So not just pushing back and accepting whatever gets spit out, but also that verification constantly.

And I think in this industry in particular, and you kind of leaned into this a little bit a minute ago, but This is human connectivity at the end of the day, right? When you're going through disasters, this is all about connecting with other humans in some of the worst times possible, right? And AI can't be there then.

But as we know, it can be there as part of the preparation stage.