What’s AI?
Artificial Intelligence is also known as AI, is the simulation of human intelligence because it can be programmed to mimic human actions. Thus, we called it the artificial human brain. In today’s world AI is playing a major role in our lives, starting from recognizing the sleep and voice pattern to recommending us the choice of food we eat. AI has been proven the boon to today’s era having the big potential to automate the task performed by the human such as speech and voice recognition, sentiment analysis, pose estimation, face recognition and detection and so many more.
So advancement in AI has proven to be a game-changer for people having some disability by making it easier to create some interactive tools.
This blog will go through some useful examples of AI which helped in improving the lives of disabled people.
Applications of AI in the lives of disabled people
- Human Connection and Communication
The AI voice assistant technology like Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana, Siri are the perfect example we have today that has created a new means of accessibility for disabled people. They can access all the daily general information just by using their voice and speaking near the mic of their mobile devices. For example, they can ask the above-mentioned technologies the virtual assistants to set the alarms, to narrate the latest news, can listen to any song by just saying “Play the music”, can perform arithmetic operations, language conversions, and many more that a human can do.
The speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies helped those people who had speech impediments. These technologies learn from the speaker’s pronunciation over time and translate it into the text or in the form of audio so that they can communicate face to face with normal people. Also, for the people who are deaf and dumb, AI also has developed a solution to cater to their problems. The technology of translation of Sign language to text/speech and vice-versa too has made the life of disabled people much easier. Now they can communicate with the outer world smoothly. There is an AI app of google called Deepmind which used the capabilities of AI to develop a lip-reading algorithm that can detect the speech of an individual and then convert it into the voice/text.
Recently an AI product was developed which uses the technology of computer vision and created a life-changing opportunity for people with low vision. The product is Microsoft seeing AI that narrates the entire world around them visually impaired by reading texts, describing whereabouts and the looks of the nearby people by identifying and recognizing faces and emotions.
2. Independent in Home Living
AI is also used in creating smart home technology that can be of great benefit for handicapped people or people with low mobility. For example, by some simple and easy voice commands they can control electric items of their home which are IoT enabled, can request the information they are seeking thus helping the disabled people live an independent life.
For example, Google Echo dot and Amazon Alexa both are very useful because both can interact with the IoT-enabled smart home devices and thus help people with disabilities by allowing voice interaction, setting reminders and alarms, access to real-time information, etc. One can literally control the lightning of their use from their smartphone either by an app or by voice commands. Smart Doorbell and Smart garage openers have made life easy and handy for disabled people. These virtual assistants too can be used as a friend in the alone time. They can talk like humans and answer the questions asked by the person. Thus, making the life of disabled people little happening.
3. Increasing Accessibility
Autonomous vehicles are in trend and their success is due to AI technology. These vehicles can be beneficial to people living with limited physical mobility. Thanks to the companies who came up with this idea and developed a product out of it namely Google, Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Drive AI, Here Technologies, etc. Using these autonomous driverless vehicles, they can go outside for work, grocery shopping, etc and they won’t be dependent on the other for this.
To conclude I would say that AI-powered products and devices have totally changed the life of every individual and they are able to make a great difference in the lives of disabled people by supporting them in daily activities and has opened many opportunities for them to see this world from a new angle. The advancement in AI is still in progress and we may see some new technologies in the coming future.
