Amid news this week about layoffs at Meta and Microsoft linked to artificial intelligence and the launch of a new version of ChatGPT, you may have missed another bit of news regarding automation. In Missouri, an automated message caused a panic among parents at Mt. Vernon Elementary School earlier this month.
According to an April 16 message from the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, an April 10 alert posted by CrimeRadar (an app described in the App Store for iPhone as “AI-powered”) incorrectly reported a shooting at Mount Vernon Elementary. Per U.S. News and World Report, the school has around 320 students.
“We are very sorry for the distress this caused to families, teachers, students, law enforcement and the wider community,” said a statement from CrimeRadar, an app that offers real-time crime updates. “Our investigation found that our automated system had misunderstood the emergency dispatch audio - incorrectly transcribing ‘show me out at’ as ‘shooting at.’”
Mt. Vernon School District officials, including Superintendent Christina West, acted on plans already in place for an emergency shooting incident at the school. The sheriff’s office said the district “did an outstanding job in making sure plans were in place.”
When users flagged CrimeRadar’s alert as false, its “system corrected it and prevented further distribution,” said the CrimeRadar statement. “This is a serious mistake and we have taken steps to stop it from happening again. We have updated our audio processing and contextual recognition protocols and, more importantly, strengthened our verification process for any incident involving schools and firearms.”
This isn’t the only recent story that highlights the limits of AI when it comes to accuracy. The New York Times reported Tuesday that “an elite Wall Street law firm has apologized to a federal judge for submitting a court filing replete with errors created by artificial intelligence.”
Those errors included case citations fabricated by AI, known as hallucinations. According to the Times the errors “came in a recent motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan and were discovered by lawyers from an opposing firm, Andrew Dietderich, a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, wrote in a letter to Judge Martin Glenn on April 18.”
Dietderich wrote that “we deeply regret that this has occurred. Sullivan & Cromwell “is one of the oldest and most prestigious law firms in the country,” the Times noted. It is even representing President Donald Trump in several appeals, including his criminal conviction in 2024.
