People should probably watch Silicon Valley before giving interviews. Repeating satire verbatim isn’t a good look.
That statement gave me pause since it's quite the unrealistic claim to make.
Secondly, this really seems like the initial phases of product development and fit — agencies would be foolish to simply rely on a startup like this to coordinate 100% of disaster response, I’m sure FEMA has similar models. With startups, especially ones tackling more “serious” domains (for lack of a better word) I’m willing to have a longer leash and proceed with caution.
It may not be AI, but combining data sources and predictions. Which is useful but not world changing.
> Ivan Porto Carrero, who oversaw a team of engineers at One Concern, said he was fired in June after speaking out against what he viewed as a company culture of dishonesty. He said the usual start-up attitude of “fail fast and try something new” was inappropriate to apply to disaster response because, “If you fail fast, people die.”
The question is whether this bias is better than just relying on government agencies, which we know are absolutely infested with racists and fascists.
To do that with ML, they'd need a loss function that captures what we care about and data it sounds like they don't have.
We do know how to build systems with high fault tolerance the old fashioned non "AI" way.
Those who are resourceful, can solve problems creatively, and take initiative will lead a disaster response while those granted rank and position tend to spin wheels and control a situation they don't understand. Disasters aren't responded to by staff employees with adequate training. If it's a major disaster, people who have never worked together nor acted in such a capacity are loosely organized together and used to channel resources and effort to victims and their families. Technology absolutely plays a vital role in disaster response but at times it can be a major hindrance. I recall when agents of FEMA came to the coliseum, they asked where the computers and network were. The location did have them, unlike others, but over time they went down and no one has available to maintain them. I explained to the agents that they will have to use forms and manual entry the old fashioned way. They just looked at each other and left. Several days passed. Then, FEMA returned with a mobile command center, featuring computers and satellite communication.
The experience didn't surprise me but made me realize how dependent people are on technology and how unprepared they are to handle circumstances they haven't trained for.
After a major earthquake, I seriously doubt competent emergency dispatch operators will be proactively sending critically-understaffed ambulances, fire engines, and police to a location identified by old, crowd-sourced cell phone shake data cobbled together for a grad-school project.
Not that emergency systems IT is not without challenges: old (often third party) technology, overly stove-piped administrative domains, and just plain old out-of-date technical skills. In other words, there's lots of low hanging fruit for bright young programmers looking to serve their community!
