Thank you so much to everyone that attended my Friday morning breakout session at the Organization Development Network (ODN) Summit 2024 – “The Role of AI in Building Accessible and Inclusive Communities.”
Please enjoy these collected resources on AI, accessibility, and community. I hope you’ll connect with me to continue the conversations after ODN2024 is over!
References, Research, and Reading
Bringing Communities In, Achieving AI for All
To ensure that artificial intelligence meaningfully addresses social inequalities, AI designers and regulators should seek out partnerships with marginalized communities to learn what they need from this emerging technology—and build it.
Equitable design, driven by the needs of marginalized communities, will do much to promote beneficial adoption of AI and prevent harms associated with the technology.
Parthasarathy, Shobita, and Jared Katzman. “Bringing Communities In, Achieving AI for All.” Issues in Science and Technology 40, no. 4 (Summer 2024): 41–44. https://doi.org/10.58875/SLRG2529
Empowering Local Communities Using Artificial Intelligence
How can scientists co-create AI systems with local communities to address regional concerns?
Co-creating AI systems and developing reusable tools with local communities in the long term allows scientists and designers to explore real-world challenges and solution spaces for various AI techniques, including machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing.
Hsu, Yen-Chia, et al. “Empowering local communities using artificial intelligence.” Patterns, vol. 3, no. 3, p. 100449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2022.100449
How Artificial General Intelligence Could Redefine Accessibility
From glasses that recognize and read visual cues to text-to-speech software, AI technology has helped bridge the gap for people with disabilities. However, current solutions, while helpful, are still limited in their ability to meet the specific needs of individuals with disabilities, especially when it comes to adapting to context, nuance and the sheer complexity of real-world situations.
In a constantly evolving field, keeping up with the latest developments is key. Educational institutions, companies, accessibility experts and the disability community need to work together to ensure that training programs match what’s needed in the real world, preparing a workforce that’s ready for the future.
Ronen, Ran. “How Artificial General Intelligence Could Redefine Accessibility.” Forbes, 2 Feb. 2024, https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2024/02/02/how-artificial-general-intelligence-could-redefine-accessibility
Not All AI are Equal: Exploring the Accessibility of AI-Mediated Communication Technology
While AI technologies and tools offer various potential benefits to their users, it is not clear whether opportunities to access these benefits are equally accessible to all. We examine this gap between availability and accessibility as it relates to the adoption of AI-Mediated Communication (AI-MC) tools, which enable interpersonal communication where an intelligent agent operates on behalf of a communicator.
Goldenthal, Emma, et al. “Not All AI Are Equal: Exploring the Accessibility of AI-Mediated Communication Technology.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 125, Aug. 2021, p. 106975. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.106975
People Powered Gen AI: Collaborating with Generative AI for Civic Engagement (PDF)
Using Gen AI for civic engagement holds much potential, including the deployment of chatbots, language translation, synthesis of complex and technical documents, visioning and co-creation of design ideas, data visualization, and simulation and scenario planning. However, with these opportunities comes numerous concerns for the accuracy of results, algorithmic bias, private sector involvement, digital equity, and environmental costs.
AI Community Tools
From chatbots to translation, member matching to social learning – there are some great options available to introduce AI into your community.
- Mighty Networks – AI-powered memberships, courses, challenges, events, and more
- Disco – AI-powered social learning, cohorts, upskilling, and more
- Google Cloud AI – document summaries, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, translation, code assistance, and more
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) AI – chatbots, virtual assistants, advanced personalization, text extraction, translation, and more
Final Slides!
If you missed getting the final Mentimeter slides from the presentation, you can download them here: [FINAL] Britne Jenke – The Role of Al in Building Accessible and Inclusive Communities (PDF)
As I mentioned during the breakout, I would not have been able to attend this conference and present “The Role of AI in Building Accessible and Inclusive Communities” without the support of the GAAD Foundation Speaker’s Fund.
The GAAD Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to disrupt the culture of technology and digital product development to include accessibility as a core requirement.
I encourage you to spend some time learning more about what the GAAD Foundation does to support accessibility awareness through Global Accessibility Awareness Day and more.