Coz Artificial is the new Special – AI for Disabled

As there is a growth in advancements in the field of AI, researchers have also started paying attention towards making technological innovations inclusive.

There has been a special focus on making technology useful for people with disabilities. 

There are more than a billion people with disabilities in this world. They form about 15% of the world’s population.

Therefore, there is a pressing need to build inclusive spaces. 

General problems faced by disabled people

The most common problem that people with different disabilities face, is the ability to lead independent lives. Activities that are routine for us, happen to be very challenging for disabled people. 

For instance, blind people find it hard to navigate around on their own. Even a trip to the supermarket to buy a few groceries can be a herculean task. Deaf people find it hard to enjoy a movie or a play. 

Children with special needs cannot communicate with other people around them. Knowingly or unknowingly, we have built the world around us in such a way that people with special needs often end up feeling left out. 

However, thanks to AI, we have made leaps and bounds in making the environment around us more accessible for people.

AI solutions for Disabled People

1. Smart Homes

Living independently used to look like a distant possibility for the differently abled.

The two main reasons are accessibility and safety. It would be difficult for a  paralysed man living alone, to carry out day to day tasks. Second, if anything went wrong, there was no way to alert the people around. 

Today, smart homes that respond to voice commands have made it much easier for disabled people to live independently.

As the tools are still in the early stages of research, they do not fully eliminate the need for a caretaker. But the overall dependence on others has considerably reduced. 

Disabled people can use voice commands or remote control to switch on/off the house appliances. Houses can also be built to alert emergency services or emergency contacts in case of accidents. 

2. Computer Vision to help the Blind

With the help of applications that make use of computer vision, blind people can point their cameras at everyday objects and listen to its description.

Such applications help blind people perform trivial tasks like making their own breakfast or looking for things. 

Applications have advanced to the level where they recognize the colour of the object in the image too. This feature can help in picking clothes from the wardrobe. 

3. Specialized Voice Assistants

Voice assistants such as Echo and Alexa have made our lives simpler. These devices have proven to be of even greater help to the disabled. 

Apart from the usual voice assistants that we use in our day to day life, specialized solutions have been developed to recognize the speech of people suffering from speech difficulties, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and other such conditions. 

Models have been trained to analyse the user’s voice command and correct the mistakes if any.

4. Closed-captioning Glasses for the Deaf

For a long time, deaf people have not had the opportunity to fully enjoy a movie or a play.

Conventional methods such as lip reading might help. But only to a certain extent. 

Closed-captioning glasses project captions of the video that is being played, so that the deaf people do not miss out.

The glasses can also turn up the volume for people who are hard of hearing.

Challenges in building AI solutions for the disabled

While we have indeed come a long way in building an inclusive society using AI, there are still many challenges to this. 

Below are a few challenges that scientists face while developing AI-based solutions for the differently-abled. 

1. Data Collection

Training algorithms to recognize voice commands from people with special needs would require huge datasets. Collection of data from disabled people may compromise their identity and private space.

Therefore, it is a challenge to adopt anonymous data collection techniques for an incredibly large sample. 

On the other hand, if the data set is not large enough, the resulting model may be biased; thereby leaving out the needs of some of the disabled people.

2. Making the technology accessible

Lots of funds go into developing AI-based solutions for the disabled. Thus, the product may not always be affordable to all.

On the other hand, disabled people around the world find it more difficult to get employment. Disabled-friendly employers and workspaces are relatively less. 

When a huge chunk of the disabled people are struggling to be financially independent, how feasible would it be for them to buy gadgets with cutting edge technology? 

Summary

AI has undoubtedly made a positive impact on the lives of the differently-abled. With tech giants like Microsoft willing to allocate special funds for building inclusive AI-based solutions, one can safely say that the future looks bright. 

Hopefully, in the coming years, we will be able to overcome the hiccups in making the solutions accessible to those to deserve it the most.