AI-Based Disability Tools and Resources

This article provides a list of potentially useful AI tools for people with disabilities that includes key features of each tool along with pros, cons, and pricing.

AccessNow is a mobile app that utilizes AI to crowdsource and map accessibility information about public spaces worldwide. It helps individuals with disabilities find and share information about accessible transportation options, ramps, elevators, and other amenities, making public spaces more inclusive.

Powered by OpenAI’s new GPT-4 language model, which contains a dynamic new image-to-text generator. Users can send images via the app to an AI-powered Virtual Volunteer, which will answer any question about that image and provide instantaneous visual assistance for a wide variety of tasks.

Braina is a multi-functional AI software that allows you to interact with your computer using voice commands in most of the languages of the world. Moreover, using Braina's Android App or iOS App you can interact with your computer using your voice from anywhere in your house over a WiFi network.

This Chrome extension that adds keyboard shortcuts to the interface, which allows users to talk to and hear AI-generated responses in the site.

Evelity provides better orientation and navigation for people with disabilities, or in disabling situations, in complex places of everyday life, using a mobility assistance application

A Netherlands-based start-up has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) powered smartphone app for deaf and mute people, which it says offers a low-cost and superior approach to translating sign language into text and speech in real time.

Live Transcribe & Sound Notifications makes everyday conversations and surrounding sounds more accessible among people who are deaf and hard of hearing, using just your Android phone or tablet.

OrCam is another revolutionary AI-based device for blind and visually impaired people that conveys visual information instantly with voice commands. The device can read texts aloud from books, newspapers, smartphone screens, or any other printed or digital surface, recognize faces, identify products, colors, and other visuals. It helps blind people do many things on their own, bringing a new level of independence.

Parrotron makes it easier for users with atypical speech to talk to and be understood by other people and by speech interfaces, with its end-to-end speech conversion approach more likely to reproduce the user’s intended speech.

Project Guideline is a collaboration between Google Research and Guiding Eyes for the Blind that enabled people with visual impairments (e.g., blindness and low-vision) to walk, jog, and run independently. Using only a Google Pixel phone and headphones, Project Guideline leverages on-device machine learning (ML) to navigate users along outdoor paths marked with a painted line.

Rogervoice is the call caption solution for your smartphone. The app transcribes your calls so you can read your conversations in real time, directly on your mobile phone.

Seeing AI is a free app that narrates the world around you. Designed with and for the blind and low vision community, this ongoing research project harnesses the power of AI to open up the visual world. Seeing AI assists with daily tasks from reading, to describing photos, to identifying products, and more. The app continues to evolve as we hear from the community and AI research advances

Voiceitt has developed speech recognition for non-standard speech: opening the world of voice technology for people with speech disabilities, aging adults, and accented speakers.

To prevent an unjust future, disabled people must become key stakeholders in the development of artificial intelligence.

Seven researchers at the University of Washington tested AI tools’ utility for accessibility. Though researchers found cases in which the tools were helpful, they also found significant problems.

This paper has two main objectives: 1) provide an overview of AI systems and machine learning, including disability bias, for accessibility professionals and related non-development roles; and 2) discuss methods for building accessible AI systems inclusively to mitigate bias.

‘Responsible Tech’ influencers including data scientists, AI (artificial intelligence) developers and HR leaders are increasingly seeking to address data biases built into AI Recruitment tools. These champions care about avoiding discrimination based on gender, race, or age – while still discriminating against these same diverse candidates who also happen to have a disability.

Researchers in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology found that natural language processing tools, a form of artificial intelligence, often contain biases against people with disabilities.

One area where AI has already proven successful is in improving the day-to-day lives of people with disabilities. Examples include a brain-spinal chord interface that helps people relearn how to walk, AI-enabled voice assistants (such as Olga Phone and Google Assistant) which make it easier for visually impaired people to use their smartphones, learning algorithms that enable computers to understand users’ intentions and anticipate a command, etc

Tech offers promise to help yet too often perpetuates ableism, say researchers. It doesn’t have to be this way.