Artificial intelligence, like all big technical advancements before it, raises significant challenges about the meaning of art. Experts have been duped by AI-created art, and critics are still grappling with the concept of an AI artist. However, AI has the ability to destabilize the ableist assumptions at the core of the art sector by assisting artists and audiences with impairments in creative new ways. How would a person who has never used their arms reimagine painting? How will the deaf and blind approach pictures and music? Artificial intelligence is transforming art itself by changing who can be an artist. But, fundamentally, the promise of technology is not a solution to the issues that artists with impairments confront.
Many technologies and techniques that help people with impairments have been around for a long time. AI has the potential to vastly enhance them. People who have prostheses often say they feel limited in how they can move and frustrated by the fact that they can’t move in a natural way. But what if a prosthetic arm could see and comprehend what it was going to pick up? So much of our daily movement is intuitive, requiring little conscious effort to determine how your fingers curl around a drink or how your wrist bends with a paintbrush. In fact, there are some universities who are producing graduates specializing in biomedical engineers are designing a prosthesis that can analyze the form and size of an item and automatically activate fluid movement by equipping it with a camera.
The options are endless. People who are nonverbal and can only move their eyes will be able to use a computer freely because to an innovative device called EagleEyes created at Boston College. The traditional mouse and keyboard interface is replaced by connecting tiny surface electrodes to a person’s head. Depending on the person’s unique condition and the degree of their movement difficulties, the electrodes may need substantial changes and training to get properly. However, increasingly intelligent systems will be able to remedy this by learning to adjust in response to a user’s activities. Photoshop, video editing, and a broad spectrum of creative applications will be significantly more accessible than ever before thanks to smarter, more inclusive interfaces.
It is critical that talks regarding technology and disability are not driven by the spectacle of innovation, but rather by the requirements of users. A typical example is the numerous efforts to develop a glove that can interpret sign language into voice or text.
AI can improve the lives of artists with disabilities if we listen to their voices. But these technologies won’t be enough to build a better future. We also need to be ready to change.