Accessibility and the 3 Bears of AI

Presented at 11:30am in Mattie Silks on Wednesday, November 8, 2023.

#38703

Speaker(s)

Glenda Sims, Chief Accessibility Officer, Deque Systems

Session Details

Length of Session: 1-hr
Format: Lecture
Expertise Level: Beginner
Type of session: General Conference

Summary

Is the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve accessibility barriers just a fairy tale? Will AI solve nothing? Will AI solve everything? Or will AI refined by human intelligence and ethics be the real path to systemic accessibility?

I believe there is a Goldilocks Zone for the ethical use of AI in digital accessibility. Join me as we explore the frightening dangers and amazing opportunities that await. Then, decide for yourself where AI fits into our future.

Abstract

This is incredibly important, y’all! As an industry, we’ve been working to make digital accessibility a reality for over 20 years, and I’m not satisfied with our progress to date. Are you?* If we keep trying to solve the digital accessibility problem the way we’ve been trying since 1999, I predict we will never win.

But all is not lost. I believe there is a Goldilocks Zone for the ethical use of AI in digital accessibility. Join me as we explore the frightening dangers and amazing opportunities that await. Then, decide for yourself where AI fits into our future.

*”96.3% of home pages had detected WCAG 2 failures!” - WebAIM Million 2023

Keypoints

What is AI and how could it be used in digital accessibility?
What are the clear and present dangers of unethical AI in digital accessibility?
Why we need to embrace ethical AI if we ever want to achieve systematic and sustainable digital accessibility.

Disability Areas

All Areas

Topic Areas

Other, Uncategorized

Speaker Bio(s)

Glenda Sims

Glenda Sims is the Chief Information Accessibility Officer at Deque, where she shares her expertise and passion for the open web with government organizations, educational institutions, and companies ranging in size from small business enterprise. Glenda is an adviser and co-founder of AIR-University (Accessibility Internet Rally) and AccessU. She serves as an accessibility consultant, judge, and trainer for Knowbility, an organization whose mission is to support the independence of people with disabilities by promoting the availability of barrier free IT. In 2010 Glenda co-authored the book InterACT with Web Standards: A holistic approach to Web Design.