[DrScump]

  Google Home called 911 and the operator heard a confrontation in the background

I wasn't aware that it was legal for any unattended device to directly call 911 by itself in any USA jurisdiction. That's why alarm companies have human operators that discern whether local 911 is to be called.

[ocdtrekkie]

Arguably, the Home interpreting "call the sheriffs" to mean "call 911" isn't really "unattended" or "calling by itself". It's unintended in this particular case, but a person arguably initiated the call. Just like the voice dial on your phone.

[closeparen]

This is a matter of getting the police to take it seriously and actually respond, and mitigating nuisance fees for calling with too many false alarms. The laws don't (generally) prohibit calling the police without a human in the loop, you'll just get better results if you have a human in the loop.

It's actually soon to be mandatory for new cars to automatically dial 911 using their onboard GSM when they detect a collision.

[greglindahl]

Tesla currently has a human in the loop -- they'll call the owner a few minutes after a collision is detected.

[EADGBE]

Oh, good, I won't need to pay for my OnStar emergency response anymore.