Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT: AI and Accessibility
Accessibility Tools
Computer vision can describe objects in the wearer's surroundings, read text, and recognize faces. Some prominent examples are:
- OrCam MyEye, a camera which attaches to glasses
- Microsoft Seeing AI, an iPhone app
- Be my eyes Virtual Volunteer, be my eyes has been using sighted human volunteers for this task through it's iPhone app since 2015, and now has a waitlist for the GPT-4 version, which will hopefully improve wait times and not be limited by the number of human volunteers available.
Virtual assistants can set schedule appointments, summarize and write emails, generate illustrations, create plans for multi-step projects, answer questions, and more. Some of the most popular are:
Overlays automatically adjust website design to make it more accessible depending on the user's needs (changing color scheme, improving keyboard navigation when the website is not accessibly designed), uses image recognition to provide alternate text for images, can recognize and describe the elements on the page and their functions to use more natural and descriptive language than ordinary screen readers. Some important examples are:
These tools are still in their infancy, and have many deficiencies. Often, overlays make mistakes which make webpages less accessible rather than more, and overlay companies have been criticized for serving more to protect website owners from lawsuits rather than making the internet more accessible.
- National Federation of the Blind statement regarding accessiBe
- Overlay Fact Sheet, signed by accessibility experts, software contributors, legal experts, and end users
- Vice article on accessiBe
- Blog by Adrian Roselli, accessibility and user experience consultant