I have students who cannot read well or simply cannot read in English well. They may have hearing or visual impairments. School may be a struggle even with individual Chromebooks. Chromebooks can increase the size of the online fonts or allow an add-on to read aloud in multiple languages. Where does AI fit in this? (Note: this blog is in response to Week 4 of #8WeeksofSummer‘s question:  Is there an equity or accessibility issue with AI use?)

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a subgroup that works on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). They define disabilities as “visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language, learning, and neurological disabilities.” Further, the organization states there are four principles of accessibility: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Perceivable would include issues like web images. Can you see the web images? If you have a vision impairment, you can get a reader for the web, but the image would be essentially invisible. To counter that problem, people are encouraged to include alternative text with images to help those who cannot see it.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help close the accessibility gap (CTI, 2024). You can use AI-generated images and have them provide the alternative text. AI-generated images can be created to be “accessible”. This may control the size, the colors and shading, and any wording associated with the image. As a help, the University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture provides checkoff sheets for accessibility to help you remember to fix your electronic files.

What are other uses of AI in making things accessible? Speech recognition, like Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa, provides ease of use for a large number of people with various disabilities. AI incorporated into web browsers makes it easier to find a specific item. AI can be programmed to read aloud the script from a video or each of the pictures to include more people. Essentially, AI provides users with more independence and better access to information.

AI systems are already providing speech-to-text translations to allow for read accessibility. It also offers better translation devices. When you deal with students from various countries, as I do, it is handy to have an app to translate on the fly.

It’s not all perfect – and you should always consider the limitations. According to Milne, a study done in 2023 showed that sometimes the AI tools gave either completely or partially wrong information. Sometimes the issue is very subtle, which can be dangerous if people simply trust the AI system’s version, possibly because they have no other way of accessing the web page (Milne, 2023). In one case, different researchers tried to get AI to make a table more accessible, but it did not always apply all of the accessibility rules (Milne, 2023). The problems with AI accessibility are more complex. The system has trouble “adapting to context, nuance, and the sheer complexity of real-world situations” (Ronen, 2024). Bias remains a real issue with any AI use.

Using AI can free some people with their use of online materials. But, everyone needs backups, checks, and a healthy dose of skepticism to ensure receiving the best information available.

Reference:

Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI). (2024). https://teaching.cornell.edu/generative-artificial-intelligence/ai-accessibility Cornell University.

Division of Agriculture, Research & Extension. (2024). https://www.uada.edu/employees/division-accessibility/alt-text.aspx. University of Arkansas.

Milne, S. (Nov. 2, 2023). Can AI help boost accessibility? These researchers tested it for themselves. University of Washington. https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/11/02/ai-accessibility-chatgpt-midjourney-ableist/

Ronen, R. (Feb. 2, 2024). How Artificial General Intelligence Could Redefine Accessibility. Forbes (online). https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2024/02/02/how-artificial-general-intelligence-could-redefine-accessibility/