Slashdot: Microsoft Wants AI To Be More Helpful For People Who Are Blind or Use Wheelchairs

Microsoft Wants AI To Be More Helpful For People Who Are Blind or Use Wheelchairs
Published on October 13, 2020 at 11:31AM
People who are blind or who use a wheelchair or who have autism often are early adopters of technology to complete everyday tasks like communicating, reading, and traveling. Artificial intelligence powers many of these services such as voice and object recognition. In many cases, these products are trained on data from able-bodied or neurotypical people. This means that the algorithms may have a limited understanding of body types, communication styles, and facial expressions. Microsoft is working with researchers and advocacy groups to solve this data problem and build data sets that better reflect all types of users and real-world scenarios. From a report: Microsoft put the challenges in context in a post published on Oct. 12 on the company’s AI Blog: “If a self-driving car’s pedestrian detection algorithms haven’t been shown examples of people who use wheelchairs or whose posture or gait is different due to advanced age, for example, they may not correctly identify those people as objects to avoid or estimate how much longer they need to safely cross a street, researchers noted. AI models used in hiring processes that try to read personalities or interpret sentiment from potential job candidates can misread cues and screen out qualified candidates with autism or who emote differently. Algorithms that read handwriting may not be able to cope with examples from people who have Parkinson’s disease or tremors. Gesture recognition systems may be confused by people with amputated limbs or different body shapes.”