this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
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Ai will give opportunities to the handicapped in a very near future. Imagine a paraplegic artist or coder or sculptor who can describe to a machine their 'vision' . They can do that now even with a picture. Soon they can do that with a 3d machine. I don't mean 'make a painting of the mountains' but instead 'cadmium red mixed with yellow brush stroke in circles'.
When you think of AI try not to think of the bad actors. Try to think of the good things that can come from it. All the worlds that will be opened up for people.
I don't disagree with the point you're making*, but please, #SayTheWord - we are disabled, not handicapped (note that at the end of this they also discuss a shift to person first language, as in "person with disability", which some people do prefer, but many others, myself included, still favour simply "disabled" or "disabled person/adult/child/whatever is relevant").
*I will just say that disabled people currently needing to, in most cases, exchange privacy and sometimes even security so that the companies selling these devices can make even more money, for access to these new technologies, is not something we should be ok with, and we should be fighting for accessibility that isn't dependant on profiteering, but instead on the actual will to include disabled people in society.
There are lots of open source projects involving AI that you can run on your personal computer. I think the community-driven projects are heading in the right direction, but it's completely opposite for the ones owned by corporations as they're only driven by profit margins, not people.
The problem with "open source" in the context of AI is that the source code is a much smaller factor than the training dataset. AI companies running around and scraping everybody's data as if they own anything they see is a real problem raising massive ethical and legal concerns.
That's great (genuinely), unfortunately having to work outside of the mainstream brings its own hurdles -this isn't on the same level but consider twitter vs mastodon or reddit vs lemmy: the corporate solution is shiny and easy and requires very little to no effort from the end user to use, while the other requires a little more understanding and effort and comfort with technology, and might not appeal, or even be known, to many. Sure, people can look it up and learn it, but that looking and learning are hurdles, and when it comes to accessibility devices, those hurdles tend to be more significantly in the way.
To be clear, I am not trying to shit on the open source stuff, I do genuinely think it's great, but like so many of the solutions we currently have to work with, it's a band-aid on a cancer. We need to remove the cancer.
I apologize that my choice of language was insulting to you. I am disabled(using your word, tho I grew up with and an comfortable with my own terms), so I rarely think about terminology for myself. I'll try to remember I'm the future.
As per your point, well I do see a problem with excess profits on the backs of other people, I also realize that innovation does not come for free. However you should probably look at open source AI . It is one of the fastest growing areas. I think if you are concerned about privacy and profits it would probably do you good to work with campaigns that are trying to get legislation passed in this area.
No worries, I wasn't personally insulted, I just think the words we use are important. Here is a good piece that talks more about it.
And thank you for the advice, and I agree, there are some smaller solutions coming through but I worry that in the environment they exist in (capitalism that already looks to exploit and ableism on top of that) won't allow them to become viable solutions. I think the problem is not one that can be solved with legislation, it (not just AI but the system it and we exist under) is a much larger problem that needs a much bigger solution and that's abolish it and build better.
Hard not to think of the bad actors when they can do a lot of damage to society
You may be right in some ways, but if encourage you (or anyone) to not use theoretical disabled people as counterpoints. Ideally, cite something someone has said instead.
I understand the impulse, but doing so often makes people sound more disabled today andputs words in the communities' mouth.
There are paraplegics writing and creating art today. There is a great list of needs they have from society which precedes ai assistance.
More nefarious people (not saying you, to be clear) also do this to veil shitty tech or policies. "Think of the disabled, with targeted advertisements based on personal data we'll make using the web less burdensome"
I think your point is kind of silly. There are lots of people that can do lots of things but still people that can't. I am also disabled. But I realized there are other people who cannot do what I can do that are also disabled. I think it's pretty clear I was speaking of them. I'm not sure why they are suddenly unimportant in terms of a discussion. When speaking of a discussion, the most incredible breakthroughs are the ones that should be touted, imo. And also in my opinion, the ability to create where you couldn't before, the ability to express your imagination that has been locked inside your head, is the greatest gift AI will give.
Maybe you don't feel the same way. That's fine but don't discount people with disabilities who cannot write or create right now.
To be clear I'm not saying there's no value to such improvements, but specifically want people to exercise caution in the realm of the hypothetical.
Rather, we should lift up actual evidence and voices of the people affected. If such disabled people are hard to find, that's a good reason to reframe. Sometimes the actual needs are much less hypothetical. Sometimes the hypothetical greatly overestimated the tech.
To root this discussion, maybe linking to paraplegic speaking on creative AI tools? Or similar examples of AI being used for a11y today which indicates this trend is realistic and a priority.
Such people are not hard to find it's just that this discussion is never centered around them. Why? Because this was out of the realm of possibility. This was just not on the radar for people.
Unfortunately AI "art" is almost exclusively bad actors, using massive datasets of scraped and stolen work without consent, copyright, or license. It doesn't have to be that way, and hopefully in the very near future the ethics and legality will be clarified and things will change, but right now AI "art" is simply plagiarism on an unprecedented, industrialized scale.
By the way, there are quite a lot of disabled artists around today.