Artificial Intelligence

International News

How AI is advancing assistive technology (Jan, TechTarget)

GPT-4 Image Recognition: An Absolute Game Changer in Accessibility:

“As you can tell from the samples above, the level of detail and accuracy provided by GPT-4 is groundbreaking. That being said, you will notice that it does have a tendency to misidentify less focused items or those that are less common.” (Jan, American Foundation for the Blind)

ChatGPT is not ready to handle web accessibility remediation (2023, Karl Groves)

Estée Lauder's Makeup App is the Tool for Blind People Voice-enabled Makeup Assistant is here—and Cosmo chatted with four of the app’s users. (2023, Cosmopolitan)

Generative AI holds great potential for those with disabilities – but it needs policy to shape it. (2023, World Economic Forum)

Using AI to support people with disability in the labour market “Building on interviews with more than 70 stakeholders, this report explores the potential of AI to foster employment for people with disability, accounting for both the transformative possibilities of AI-powered solutions and the risks attached to the increased use of AI for people with disability.” (2023, OECD) See discussion on the Debrief.

Prompting GitHub Copilot Chat to become your personal AI assistant for accessibility. (2023, Github)

AI Image Contest Draws Striking Entries disability-related images. (2023, New Mobility)

Real AI Solutions for Accessibility Challenges (2023, Equal Entry)

Artificial Intelligence Incident Database indexes harms caused by deployment of artificial intelligence systems, and has many items related to disability. (2023, AIID)

AI is acting ‘pro-anorexia’ and tech companies aren’t stopping it “Disturbing fake images and dangerous chatbot advice: New research shows how ChatGPT, Bard, Stable Diffusion and more could fuel one of the most deadly mental illnesses” (2023, Washington Post)

How sovereign funds could empower the future of assistive technology and disability AI (2023, World Economic Forum)

Adventures with BeMyAI (2023, Tink)

AI Revolution: Paralyzed Woman ‘Speaks’ via Digital Avatar (2023, Neuroscience News)

To chat or bot to chat: Ethical issues with using chatbots in mental health (2023, Digital Health)

‘AI’ Will Not Fix Accessibility “Accessibility is about people. It is not a strictly technical problem to be solved with code.” (2023, Adrian Roselli)

Visual description via AI, the promise and the problem

“ When it works well, it can take your breath away. When it fails, it can make things up with such confidence that you may be convinced it’s telling the truth when it isn’t. Those of us with no vision may not be able to determine the accuracy of certain descriptions without verification from a sighted person we trust.” (2023)

Microsoft leverages power of AI to improve accessibility for disabled people (2023, AT Today)

Why Sign Language Translation Poses a Puzzle for AI. (2023, Slator)

Cognitive diversity-centred AI can improve social inclusion. “Artificial intelligence can address some of the challenges and discrimination that people with cognitive diversity and other disabilities face in everyday life.” (2023, World Economic Forum)

Can ChatGPT Make The World More Accessible? (2023, Accessibility.com)

New GPT-4 Model Can Reportedly Describe Images Accurately “However, when you’re developing content for real people, you need to rely on the judgment of real people.” (2023, BOIA)

Envision Adds ChatGPT AI Sight Assistance To Its Smart Glasses For The Blind (2023, Forbes)

GPT-4's new capabilities power a 'virtual volunteer' for the visually impaired (2023, TechCrunch)

Be My Eyes Announces New Tool Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 to Improve Accessibility for People Who are Blind or Have Low-Vision. (2023, Business Wire) See background on the collaborations that made it happen, and a reflective piece on riding the AI hype wave.

AI-powered HR technology has a disability problem: “AI recruitment tools have become the first line of defence against high-volume online hiring. But unless the unintended consequences of AI-powered HR technology are urgently addressed, hundreds of millions of people worldwide face lifetimes of economic and societal exclusion” (2023, The Forum Network)

ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities: “We extended the capabilities of ChatGPT to robotics, and controlled multiple platforms such as robot arms, drones, and home assistant robots intuitively with language.” (2023, Microsoft)

Ableism and ChatGPT: Why People Fear It Versus Why They Should Fear It:

“If ChatGPT can be used to make education more accessible, then why are so many educators against it? I suspect that part of the reason is that ChatGPT threatens to disrupt able-bodied privilege, which is an entrenched feature of the education system—something used to make decisions about grading, publishing, and hiring.” (2023, APA Blog)

Equally AI Releases ChatGPT-Powered Report on Web Accessibility Websites in the US, Urges Business Leaders to Prioritize Inclusivity. (2023, PR Web)

AI for Accessibility: discussion of opportunities and challenges. (2023, Equal Entry)

How ableist algorithms dominate digital spaces “From clumsy social media ads to problematic automation in recruitment, algorithms are often unintentionally stacked against disabled professionals” (2023, IT Pro)

Apple's New AI Audiobooks Are Great for Accessibility, Bad for Voice Actors (2023, Lifewire)

ChatGPT-powered web accessibility platform launched (2023, BusinessCloud) Remember to great this kind of news with healthy scepticism.

A memo on disability-centered AI and algorithms. (2023, Yonah.org)

Disability And Algorithmic Risks: Public letter and call-to-action: “Existing approaches to understanding high and unacceptable-risk systems still miss disability-specific vocabulary, scenarios and associated risks” (2023, Yonah.org)

Controversy erupts over non-consensual AI mental health experiment. “Koko let 4,000 people get therapeutic help from GPT-3 without telling them first.” (2023, Ars Technica)

Artificial Intelligence Is Dangerous For Disabled People At Work: 4 Takeaways For Developers And Buyers. (2022, Forbes)

Common AI language models show bias against people with disabilities: ‘when a disability-related term followed “good” in a sentence, the AI generated “bad.”’ (2022, The Hill)

Humanity should get the best from AI, not the worst Statement from Gerard Quinn, whose report we explored previously. (2022, OHCHR)

Bot can spot depressed Twitter users in 9 out of 10 cases (2022, Tech Xplore)

A new alliance for Disability Ethical? AI led by Scott Parker International, IBM, Oxford Brookes and others. "AI powered recruitment technology threatens the life chances of hundreds of millions of people with disabilities worldwide, as well as those of us who will become disabled in time." (2022, Includes a collection of resources)

Policy Brief on Ageism in artificial intelligence for health (2022, WHO)

Artificial intelligence and the rights of persons with disabilities a study from the UN Rapporteur on Disability. (2022, UN) See commentary on the Debrief and summary from EDF.

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China

Good for tech: Disability expertise and labor in China's artificial intelligence sector (2023, First Monday)

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Japan

Inside Japan’s long experiment in automating eldercare. “A growing body of evidence is finding that robots tend to end up creating more work for caregivers.” (2023, MIT Technology Review)

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Europe

Artificial Intelligence Act: European Parliament misses chance to ensure accessibility. (2023, EDF)

AI Act: European Parliament must ensure accessibility of Artificial Intelligence systems. (2023, EDF)

Civil society and EDF reacts to European Parliament’s Artificial Intelligence Act draft Report urging safeguarding people's rights in AI legislation. (2022, EDF)

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Belgium

'He Would Still Be Here': Man Dies by Suicide After Talking with AI Chatbot, Widow Says. (2023, Vice)

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Ireland

Can we use AI to tackle internet accessibility? “We visited Vision Ireland and its spin-out IA Labs, which is looking at AI as a way to make the internet more accessible for people with visual impairments.” (2023, Silicon Republic)

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Slovakia

The story of Ukrainian Anton Mirhorodchenko and how he has been using Copilot to write code. (Short video, 2023, Microsoft)

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Spain

Report on technology and disability 63% of disabled people fear that AI systems will exclude them from recruitment processes. (In Spanish, 2023, Fundación Adecco)

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United Kingdom

Making AI delivery robots disability-friendly “As a robot designed to use pavements, it could have become another frustrating obstacle for disabled people to navigate.” (2023, BBC)

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United States

A disability advocate preserves his voice with iPhone For physician and disability advocate Tristram Ingham, Apple’s new speech accessibility features provide reassurance amid an uncertain future (2023, Apple)

UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges “For the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug.” (2023, Ars Technica)

Personal Voice Should be a Game Changer for Me. It's Not. “If you know you are at risk of losing your speech, chances are you - like Nick - may not be able to read and recite sentences in these optimal conditions.” (2023, Reach Every Voice)

Not magic: Opaque AI tool may flag parents with disabilities. “The couple was stunned when child welfare officials showed up, told them they were negligent and took away their daughter.” (2023, AP News)

Denied by AI: How Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to cut off care for seniors in need. (2023, Stat)

How School Tech Treats Students With Disabilities Like Criminals. “The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) needs an update to protect vulnerable kids’ rights in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) and nonstop surveillance.” (2022, The Daily Beast)

The Biden Administration warns that Hiring algorithms, and artificial intelligence risk violating Americans with Disabilities Act (2022, NBC News) See the detailed guidance, from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a summary from ADA.gov. Also on Forbes and Bloomberg Law.

Ableism And Disability Discrimination In New Surveillance Technologies. How new surveillance technologies in education, policing, health care, and the workplace disproportionately harm disabled people (2022, CDT)

How AI is being used to improve disability employment (2022, Microsoft)

In Our Tech Reckoning, People with Disabilities are Demanding a Reckoning of their Own (2022, Tech Policy Press)

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Australia

Australian terrorism prediction tool considered autism a sign of criminality “A tool designed to predict future crime in terrorist offenders considered them at greater risk of offending if they were autistic despite having no empirical basis to do so, an independent report has found.” (2023, the Guardian)

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