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An End To Phone Pranking (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A researcher at Carnegie Mellon University has developed an intelligent system that is helping the U.S. Coast Guard to distinguish and weed out prank mayday calls that cost it up to millions of dollars a year when it flies or motors out on pointless rescue missions, per Govtech.com. The program, created by Carnegie Mellon's Rita Singh, creates a barcode of a person's voice, deciphering whether the caller really is on a boat or actually in a house somewhere. It can unmask repeat pranksters since it can pick up telltale markers and match them up.
Going back to the original article, it sounds less like a black box that produces a Prank/No Prank decision, and more like a complex program that produces a list of characteristics present in the call, which the Coast Guard can then use to make the decision themselves.
For instance, it can match voices and even the sound of one's breath to previous calls, allowing the Coast Guard to recognize repeat pranksters. It can tell from the sound of a voice what sort of room the caller is in (e.g. lots of windows), enabling them to get a sense for whether the person might be lying about their location (e.g. "We're capsizing in this storm!" is a lot less believable if the person is in a concrete room).
In the meantime though, the Coast Guard indicated they're responding to about 99% of calls that they believe are pranks, despite believing they're pranks. As you said, the risk to not respond is too high. Thankfully, this software is giving them more tools to help in the post-prank investigation and enforcement side of things.
TFA that the submitter linked to is a junk article written by someone who didn't understand how the Coast Guard works and assumed "calls" meant phone calls. It's so badly written the only reason I can think of for someone to use it in a submission is to drive page clicks for ad revenue. TFA links to the actual article which is much more informative and better written, although it crucially never clarifies what type of "calls" the Coast Guard responds to.
VHF channel 16 is a dedicated marine emergency frequency around the world. In U.S. waters, the US Coast Guard monitors this channel 24/7 and responds to any mayday calls. So the "calls" here are VHF radio calls, not phone calls. A mayday call is supposed to identify your vessel, provide a location, state the problem, and how many people are aboard your vessel, in that order. But things rarely go the way they're supposed to and lots of mayday calls are partial or missing crucial information. The USCG has to assume these are real and the boat sank or radio died before complete information could be broadcast, and deploy search and rescue assets.
Unfortunately there is no universal caller ID on VHF radios. Some of the newer ones will automatically identify your vessel and/or provide your location, but most VHF radios used by recreational boaters are old analog units which simply broadcast only what you say into them. So the only thing the USCG frequently gets is a voice in the RF ether claiming people are in danger of dying. (The USCG will also respond to a cell phone call if it claims to be from a boat close enough to shore to get cell phone service, or if it's from someone reporting a vessel overdue based on a float plan that was filed before leaving.)
I am a tax payer and I am not an avid boater. I have no reason to save you at all costs. Only as long as rescue costs are reasonable, it will be funded. If the cost becomes too much, we would yank the entire rescue service.
That would be a gross violation of over 1000 years of jurisprudence and legal precedence, not to mention the violation of any number of modern international agreements and treaties. Every seafaring nation has a duty of care for the waters they border, and every mariner be they recreational or commercial, is part of the system. This is the cost of being a nation, and of engaging in maritime trade.
Now, that said, most distress situations are only coordinated by the coastguard rather than run by them. I've responded to a couple of distress situations over the years while out sailing. In one case it was a stranded kitesurfer, in the other case a motorboat with a dead engine. In the kitesurfer, he was a mile off the beach, with a flooded kite and cold. I took him onboard, gathered up the kite, and took him to the nearest dock. In the case of the motorboat I tossed them a line, and held them off the rocks until the local tow service (commercial operation) got out there to haul him into the dock. In both cases I would never expect compensation beyond a thank-you; I just expect that the same consideration would be given to me in return should I ever run into trouble.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...