The Chula Vista Police Department will soon begin using AI in their policing.

Earlier this week, the city voted to implement the AI tool in body-worn cameras to generate real-time transcriptions of police encounters and create immediate police reports while officers are still at the scenes they were called out to.

The AI tool will also do real-time language translations.

With a unanimous vote, the city council approved adding the AI tool to Chula Vista policing on Tuesday, a decision that’s raising lots of questions among the community.  

“It does kind of get you thinking: ‘Where are they going with this? What are they going to do with this? How is it going to be implemented? What kind of oversight is there going to be, if any?’ ” said Arvy Polanco, who works in Chula Vista.

Here’s how police said it will work: When the officer’s body-worn camera is in use, the Axon AI tool will generate a video transcription and draft a report.

“If they’re just taking words out of transcripts, they don’t have the context, you know?” Chula Vista resident Kary Miller said. “You don’t see the emotion, you don’t see the feelings that it was said with.”

Police said officers will be required to acknowledge that the report was generated using the AI tool and then review the report for accuracy before signing off on it. Once it’s approved by their supervisor, it will then go through the standard chain of command and, eventually, to the DA’s office.

Police said the introduction of Axon AI technology will make police reports more structured, consistent and complete, adding that the four-year, $1 million contract will save officers up to three hours of writing reports per shift, making officers available for more emergency calls.

Seth Hall with the San Diego Privacy group questions if efficiency could come at a high cost.

“Chula Vista Police Department will save time on this, but I would encourage all people to realize that saving time is not the point of policing,” Hall said. “Policing is intended to go deliberately and slowly, because it can cause enormous harm to the people who are caught up in it.”

Polanco understands how the tool could help officers, and, while he doesn’t oppose this use of AI, he said it’s important that the Chula Vista Police Department is cautious with how the tool is used.

 “I believe it should be very gradual,” Polanco said. “Deliberate, but gradual is the way I would put it.”

NBC 7 reached out to Axon AI for a comment for this story and is still awaiting a response.