Latest / The Alerting Authority / AI Is Changing Emergency Alerts — Are We Ready? | Dr. Jessica Jensen

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AI Is Changing Emergency Alerts — Are We Ready? | Dr. Jessica Jensen · The Alerting Authority

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Jeanette Sutton.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Eddie Bertola.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we welcome you to another episode of the Alerting Authority.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, we encourage you to subscribe, follow, listen, and most importantly, participate in these podcasts.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: We want your questions, concerns, ideas, problems, pain points, and your success stories so we as alerting authorities can better do our jobs and make our community safer.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: And this episode is sponsored again by the Alerting Authority.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's the program and training that we go out and provide.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we do that because, and the quotations, we'll figure it out when something happens, is not an emergency communication strategy.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: So what we do is we help organizations strengthen their alerting programs through practical training, governance, policy reviews, message design exercises, real-world guidance that prepares people to make good decisions under pressure.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: When every second counts, confidence should come from competence, not cross fingers.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm throwing this in because Jeanette, we I tend to do this anyway, folks, you know.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: But sometimes we talk to people who are like, no, my messages are fine.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want a message review or we don't need help with design.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Any thoughts?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I have so many thoughts, but people can read about that in the worn room.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: We we still need people need help.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's okay to have a message review done.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not a gotcha moment.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's really an a chance to um learn and build on foundations um based on research.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: So that's my invitation to you.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I agree wholeheartedly with getting messages reviewed.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I am grateful that we've had the opportunity to work with several organizations already to help them to improve their messaging.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we'll continue to share more about that as we continue to do this across the country.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for now, I want to introduce our speaker for the day, um, or our our guest, our the person who's joining the podcast.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: We have joining us today, Dr.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Jessica Jensen.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: She is a senior policy researcher at RAND and a national expert at the crossroads of disaster policy practice and research.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: For over two decades, she's been helping emergency management as an emerging profession and distributed function rethink how we mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from crises, especially as disasters become more frequent, complex, and far-reaching.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Before joining RAND in 2023, Jessica spent 18 years shaping the academic field of emergency management at North Dakota State University.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: She was the department head and endowed full professor.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: She holds a PhD and a Masters of Science in Emergency Management, which is a rarity in the field.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And today, Jessica's joining us because she is the first author on a report that was just issued called the AIDS Report, AIDE, which is an acronym.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: It stands for AI for disasters and emergencies.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And this study was released about two weeks ago, so um early August.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's gotten a lot of conversation, a lot of attention among practitioners and people who are AI curious and AI watchers, really trying to understand like what has Rand learned about AI and about AI for disasters and emergencies.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there are some things that are included that we would expect, and there are some things that aren't included that become recommendations for future research and practice.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're gonna talk with Jessica today and learn all about it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we're happy to have her today.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right, and the wrap-up.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um all right.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's the wrap-up.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a great conversation, and there's just so much in that report that really requires a deeper dive to get the details of it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I am appreciative that there are those executive summaries that Jessica pointed us to for anyone who's looking for a written summary where they don't have to read 150 pages of deep detailed text and may come out at the other end wondering, well, what else do I need to know?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's clearly identified in the executive summary, um, those recommendations that we talked about with her, um, how how important this uh consumer reports type of an organization would be for the whole area of emergency management and practitioners.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: No, I and again, this isn't the start, and it's definitely not the end.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's just that idea of guys, this is a continued um topic that we're gonna we're gonna hit because it is very relevant to what we're doing.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And and for those that again are just starting in this field, welcome.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: For those that are the the trailblazers, you're probably saying, okay, hurry up.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: We've got even more stuff coming.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: And for everybody in between, that's that's why we're here.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think it's great.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I I do want to point out that the conversation we were having about benchmarking and alerts and warnings and how important that is.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, it is really important if you're gonna use AI for writing your alerts and warnings, knowing that the system you're using meets the standards that have been set by academic researchers and the uh what we've learned about the should be included in messages.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it should not override your personal professional knowledge about alerts and warnings and all of the things that we've been teaching in this podcast and in the writings at the Warren Room and in the trainings that the alerting authority does across the country.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I do want to emphasize the importance of the human in the loop and that your knowledge that you bring to the use of AI is going to become even more important as you are thinking about how to communicate effectively.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have questions about how to communicate effectively, this is where reaching out to us is going to be really beneficial to you.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: We do provide the trainings to organizations across the country.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: We conduct message audits to look at the messages that you've sent historically.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: We look at your templates to make sure that they do conform to the standards that have been set.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: We provide policy assistance.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if you love doing deep intensive work with subject matter experts who are sitting with you on the computer for 10 hours over the course of a week, we have a warning boot camp.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the next one is scheduled for the week following Thanksgiving, which is coming up in just a few months.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: So we hope that you guys sign up, reach out to us.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: Again, we love hearing from everybody who listens.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, Jeanette and I talk about it when we're not on the podcast, we'll talk about people who've written in and questions or comments they have.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we're here for you.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: This is the alerting authority.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: We recognize every second has a story, and we are happy to help share yours.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening.