Re: AI and the future of Web accessibility Guidelines

I agree fully with Patrick:

> Once you bring in the "AI will do it" line of thinking, we may as well
> just remove any author requirement, and WCAG becomes just a list of
> requirements for AI user agents to massage any old web content into
> something accessible.

Being a strong supporter against AI, because it will never work for accessibility, we have been down this road before. I mean, Google attempted their best shot and look where it got them. In hot water (so to speak).

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/01/google-sorry-racist-auto-tag-photo-app

and if we are ever going to learn something as a people (which we have not), instances like this will always be why I vehemently oppose AI in tech and accessibility.

The article may be old, but the fact remains that AI is not the answer now (or ever in my opinion).





---
Best,

Todd Libby





On Thursday, April 4th, 2024 at 8:08 AM, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:

> On 04/04/2024 08:02, Gregg Vanderheiden RTF wrote:
> 
> > I think much of our work is not forward-looking.
> > 
> > We will soon have AI that can do a better job of text alternatives than
> > humans can for example.
> > And then it is unclear why we would require authors to do all this work.
> > This applies to a LOT of things.
> 
> 
> As a counterpoint, Gregg ... when does it end? You've stated similar
> when it comes to things like authors needing to provide correct explicit
> markup for headings, since (to paraphrase) "AI will be able to do it".
> 
> Captions, audio descriptions ... "AI will be able to do it".
> 
> Colour contrast issues? "AI can detect it and change it on the fly".
> 
> Once you bring in the "AI will do it" line of thinking, we may as well
> just remove any author requirement, and WCAG becomes just a list of
> requirements for AI user agents to massage any old web content into
> something accessible.
> 
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
> 
> * https://www.splintered.co.uk/
> * https://github.com/patrickhlauke
> * https://flickr.com/photos/redux/
> * https://mastodon.social/@patrick_h_lauke

Received on Thursday, 11 April 2024 01:21:13 UTC