Notices by Charli-Jo (lottie@beige.party)

I frequently see people asking, even demanding, that AI-generated Alt Text stop. If those folks clearly have usable vision, I block them and move on – life’s too short for preachy whining from people who don’t rely on Alt Text.

But when it’s a blind person saying this, I’m surprised. As a blind person myself, I know that 99% of the images I encounter online lack any description. Now, with a suite of AI tools, I can finally generate accessible, usable image descriptions. Are they perfect? No. Computer vision isn’t sight, but it’s made staggering progress – beyond what I ever expected. And if I need more clarity, I can always consult a human through these same tools.

Blind people slamming AI-generated Alt Text isn’t helping. We need these systems to improve, not disappear. The reality is, expecting every image to have a human-created description is unrealistic. Let’s push for better technology, not bash what’s already making a difference.

#AI #AltText #Blind #BeMyAI #BeMyEyes #AccessAI #ComputerVision #AssistiveTech

This is the problem with the deranged anti-AI stand on mastodon! The article seems very sensible and talks about classism and ableism. https://creativewriting.social/@ruthannereid/113065796685888728

The image is a humorous and surreal scene set in a retro-style kitchen. An alien with a green head and large black eyes is standing at an ironing board, ironing a human skin suit. The suit is draped over the ironing board with the head hanging down, making it look like the alien is preparing to wear it. The alien is wearing a white apron. In the background, there are typical kitchen items like a washing machine, detergent box, and a basket of laundry. A small dog is standing on the floor, looking at the alien. The text at the top of the image reads, "Me getting ready to act normal at work." #AI 👩🦯 https://mastodon.world/@AaronDavid/112491868205930258

In the UK, we’ve had ‘Sight as a service’ for decades. Thirty or more years ago we had the Personal Reader Service (PRS) that, from memory, provided people in work with someone to read to them for up to fifteen hours a week. Even though I had a “reading machine” called the Kurzweil Reading Edge at the time, PRS was vital because the machines couldn’t read hand-written material and weren’t portable.
Over the past twenty-five years, I have benefited from ‘Sight as a service’ in many more ways:

1. In work I used a ‘driver guide’ employed to drive my company car and guide me at events.
2. In work I used a ‘support worker’ to help me complete tasks that included hand-written items.
3. In work I had a ‘driver’ when I had the sort of workload that couldn’t be completed if I had to use public transport – it took me way too long to realise how much more relaxing walking out the house and getting into a car was, compared to a journey of three taxis and two trains.
4. At university I had a ‘personal assistant’ who helped me use a vital, but inaccessible, software package.
5. At college I had a ‘support worker’ who basically did everything for me other than the actual work, which made me v-lazy!

I could go on, I took a support worker with me once when I had to travel internationally, used to have someone with me at conferences (to help with networking) and on and on. The main thing to remember from all these examples is that these people where all provided (paid) by someone else, not me.

Although blind and visually impaired people in the UK had been receiving a benefit aimed at providing help with ‘personal care’ for decades, most people I met didn’t use this to purchase ‘Sight as a service’ as such, not in the way they would for work or at school, instead they would ‘have a cleaner’, eat out or take taxis and would ‘pay’ for it out of there benefit.

Eventually ‘sight as a service’ came to the iPhone – the two most popular (and surviving) apps being ‘AIRA Explorer’ and ‘Be My Eyes’. Both these apps connect you to a sighted person who can ‘see’ through your phone’s camera and tell you what they see. One is free, connecting you to a volunteer, the other requires a subscription and connects you to a professionally trained Visual Interpreter. The subscription service offers many ways to reduce costs, including schemes whereby individual companies and even specific locations can offer free access.

Blind people deserve choice and AIRA and Be My Eyes are both excellent services, the free service is as good as the paid alternative, within the limits of a volunteer-led model. I have used them both and expect to carry on doing so in the future. But for now, AI has come to ‘Sight as a service’ and that will be the subject of my next post.

For now, comments and questions are welcome. What is ‘Sight as a service’ like where you live? How have you used it? How would you like to?
#Accessibility #AIRA #BeMyEyes #Blind #Disability