4 ms·

Blind internet users struggle with error-prone AI aids

romellem 3y ago
https://archive.is/sU37m https://archive.is/sU37m
- webspinner 3y ago
  Cool thanks for all the archive links yay!
azemetre 3y ago
> The club had “no idea” the software, set up with no manual intervention, was that unreliable, Rosin said. It would be comical if it weren't so sad that software were making lives worse, not better.
- pvillano 3y ago
  It's maddening that they didn't check if it worked. It's like they don't care...
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    Well, it's likely that they don't.
  - webspinner 3y ago
    It's a thing I run into with a decent amount developers these days, actually. I tried to work with a particular service to get them to fix their accessibility for months, and all I got was well, we fixed the tabbed navigation a bit. Which would probably be cool, if this wasn't a webapp that I was trying to use with all my various quick nav things, etc.
gnicholas 3y ago
> Level Access, an accessibility provider, has just bought UserWay, an overlay maker. This news hit the accessibility community like a ton of bricks. Overlays have been seen as worse than useless among accessibility professionals, so it was a huge shock that a reputable provider would have acquired an overlay company. The structure of the transaction was also weird (the CEO of the target company purchased stock in the acquirer as part of the transaction). Soon thereafter news broke that another accessibility rockstar was joining AudioEye (a company similar to UserWay). [1] I imagine that the dam may be breaking and tech-enabled solutions may not be viewed in as bad a light as before. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenaquino/2024/01/31/new-audioeye-chief-accessibility-officer-mike-paciello-talks-his-career-new-role-more-in-interview/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenaquino/2024/01/31/new-aud...
- webspinner 3y ago
  Oh I also don't deal with overlays. I have an extension installed to block all of them.
- webspinner 3y ago
  When I say I don't deal with overlays, and I refuse, I think they're a scourge. They want to help businesses by not getting sued, but they don't want to help us, the community, in any way. Audio eye threatened to sue someone who was in the process of exposing them, for defamation. https://adrianroselli.com/2023/02/audioeye-will-get-you-sued.html https://adrianroselli.com/2023/02/audioeye-will-get-you-sued...
userbinator 3y ago
Error-prone AI has been a horrible nuisance even for those who aren't blind.
gerdesj 3y ago
The rise in AI generated content affects us all, generally negatively, sighted or not. There are a vast number of sites that are largely LLM generated that exist to deliver adverts. Basically, the old school link farms have evolved into automatically generated content farms. For example, if you search for a few IT technical terms you will often get a lot of blog style returns. They will often look like a Word Press site with a selection from a colour and font scheme. With luck you will find some Stack overflow posts and with the Good Lord (pick your deity) looking down, you might get some real content. The situation for finding and engaging on the internet is pretty dire and if one or more of your faculties are a bit shag ... really dire. Perhaps what we need is some sort of Open Access to add to Open Source. I have deliberately picked Access even though its been sort of taken by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access The Access I envisage is actual ability to access something. The other effort might consider Open Research or similar instead.
- skydhash 3y ago
  I don't know how worse it will get, but my current solution is a hoard of pdfs (books and articles), saving links (in case I can't find that one good site), and a documentation browser (Dash on macOS). A current trend is curated lists of links (awesome lists, blogrolls,…) so maybe one day, the only good way to experience the web will be this small web which will act like a human filter.
  - rand0mx1 3y ago
    Do you hoard web pages using extension like SingleFile Web?
    - skydhash 3y ago
      I probably should, but so far, there's only a few articles I've saved this way (long-form writing that get saved to my read-later list). Most of the links I've saved are objects-related (apps, libraries,...), and will only be useful if I need to interact with the object. If something is useful to me (techniques, recommendations,…) I put it in my notes. If the whole site is useful, I archive it.
mintplant 3y ago
https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F3c877c55-b698-43da-a222-8ae183f53078 https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F...
xk_id 3y ago
“AI aids” is a wonderful accident of language.
soygem 3y ago
Who knew you could get aids from AI...
devinprater 3y ago
Can confirm. But it's barely AI. Definitely not generative. Articles just love to put AI on everything. Then again, so do these accessibility grifters that plop the label onto anything that's barely automated.
webspinner 3y ago
It isn't something I struggle with, because it isn't something I choose to deal with at the moment.
webspinner 3y ago
This article is behind a paywall, I unpaywalled it for everyone. https://archive.ph/kED3D https://archive.ph/kED3D

https://archive.is/sU37m https://archive.is/sU37m

webspinner 3y ago
Cool thanks for all the archive links yay!

> The club had “no idea” the software, set up with no manual intervention, was that unreliable, Rosin said. It would be comical if it weren't so sad that software were making lives worse, not better.

pvillano 3y ago
It's maddening that they didn't check if it worked. It's like they don't care...
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Well, it's likely that they don't.
- webspinner 3y ago
  It's a thing I run into with a decent amount developers these days, actually. I tried to work with a particular service to get them to fix their accessibility for months, and all I got was well, we fixed the tabbed navigation a bit. Which would probably be cool, if this wasn't a webapp that I was trying to use with all my various quick nav things, etc.

gnicholas 3y ago

> Level Access, an accessibility provider, has just bought UserWay, an overlay maker. This news hit the accessibility community like a ton of bricks. Overlays have been seen as worse than useless among accessibility professionals, so it was a huge shock that a reputable provider would have acquired an overlay company. The structure of the transaction was also weird (the CEO of the target company purchased stock in the acquirer as part of the transaction). Soon thereafter news broke that another accessibility rockstar was joining AudioEye (a company similar to UserWay). [1] I imagine that the dam may be breaking and tech-enabled solutions may not be viewed in as bad a light as before. 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenaquino/2024/01/31/new-audioeye-chief-accessibility-officer-mike-paciello-talks-his-career-new-role-more-in-interview/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevenaquino/2024/01/31/new-aud...

webspinner 3y ago
Oh I also don't deal with overlays. I have an extension installed to block all of them.
webspinner 3y ago
When I say I don't deal with overlays, and I refuse, I think they're a scourge. They want to help businesses by not getting sued, but they don't want to help us, the community, in any way. Audio eye threatened to sue someone who was in the process of exposing them, for defamation. https://adrianroselli.com/2023/02/audioeye-will-get-you-sued.html https://adrianroselli.com/2023/02/audioeye-will-get-you-sued...

userbinator 3y ago

Error-prone AI has been a horrible nuisance even for those who aren't blind.

gerdesj 3y ago

The rise in AI generated content affects us all, generally negatively, sighted or not. There are a vast number of sites that are largely LLM generated that exist to deliver adverts. Basically, the old school link farms have evolved into automatically generated content farms. For example, if you search for a few IT technical terms you will often get a lot of blog style returns. They will often look like a Word Press site with a selection from a colour and font scheme. With luck you will find some Stack overflow posts and with the Good Lord (pick your deity) looking down, you might get some real content. The situation for finding and engaging on the internet is pretty dire and if one or more of your faculties are a bit shag ... really dire. Perhaps what we need is some sort of Open Access to add to Open Source. I have deliberately picked Access even though its been sort of taken by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access The Access I envisage is actual ability to access something. The other effort might consider Open Research or similar instead.

skydhash 3y ago
I don't know how worse it will get, but my current solution is a hoard of pdfs (books and articles), saving links (in case I can't find that one good site), and a documentation browser (Dash on macOS). A current trend is curated lists of links (awesome lists, blogrolls,…) so maybe one day, the only good way to experience the web will be this small web which will act like a human filter.
- rand0mx1 3y ago
  Do you hoard web pages using extension like SingleFile Web?
  - skydhash 3y ago
    I probably should, but so far, there's only a few articles I've saved this way (long-form writing that get saved to my read-later list). Most of the links I've saved are objects-related (apps, libraries,...), and will only be useful if I need to interact with the object. If something is useful to me (techniques, recommendations,…) I put it in my notes. If the whole site is useful, I archive it.

mintplant 3y ago

https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F3c877c55-b698-43da-a222-8ae183f53078 https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F...

xk_id 3y ago

“AI aids” is a wonderful accident of language.

soygem 3y ago

Who knew you could get aids from AI...

devinprater 3y ago

Can confirm. But it's barely AI. Definitely not generative. Articles just love to put AI on everything. Then again, so do these accessibility grifters that plop the label onto anything that's barely automated.

webspinner 3y ago

It isn't something I struggle with, because it isn't something I choose to deal with at the moment.

webspinner 3y ago

This article is behind a paywall, I unpaywalled it for everyone. https://archive.ph/kED3D https://archive.ph/kED3D