HAVE I BROKEN YOU? 💎

Something happened this morning that completely blew me away.

I’m disabled; typing is difficult. For years, the keyboard has determined how quickly I can participate online. I generally avoided social media because typing was so laboriously slow. It was simply easier not to participate.

Then something changed.

ChatGPT suddenly appeared in a whole new arrangement. The blue orb was now bouncing just above the text input field at the bottom of the screen, and I could also see the actual typed words GPT and I were speaking as we spoke them.

At first, I didn’t know what was happening and, thinking out loud, I actually said, “Have I broken you?”

I hadn’t, apparently.

Then GPT calmly explained the new interface to me as though it were a perfectly ordinary change. But for me, it was anything but. I was talking by voice and reading the conversation as streaming text, without typing anything.

Then the penny dropped.

I WAS USING THE COMPUTER AT THE SPEED OF SPEECH,
NOT AT THE SPEED OF MY DISABILITY.

That is an accessibility story worth talking about. For decades, humans have had to adapt to computers: keyboards, mice, menus and software. Now the computer is beginning to adapt to us.

For millions and millions of people with disabilities all around the world, AI isn’t just a clever chatbot or productivity tool. It can mean participating freely online without the machinery getting in the way.

Accessibility shouldn’t be a footnote in the AI story. It should be one of the headlines.

@3goodthings
@DigitalCoup
@meditation
@economics_that_works
@disability
@pwd
@joinin

#Accessibility #Disability #AssistiveTechnology #VoiceTechnology #AI #people #humanRights #leadership #OpenAI