Assistive Technology

Artificial intelligence offers huge potential in helping people with vision, hearing, mobility, cognition and learning disabilities, whether temporary or permanent, to lead a better quality of life. AI-powered assistive technologies have proven to offer significant benefits for persons with disabilities (PWDs), especially in terms of human connection, everyday life in the modern world and employment. All this is possible through accessibility tools, digital accessibility, and inclusive design.

When such design incorporates AI, it has the power to enhance assistive products through powerful features. In fact, one area where AI and machine learning have made a significant contribution is access to information, such that disabilities do not limit the opportunities for education, employment, and a better life. With AI-enabled tools, no one gets left behind.

Examples include:

and other solutions to enhance opportunities for education and for equal opportunities employment, etc.

Physical Aids

Artificial intelligence can also provide physical aid and mobility.  AI researchers joined efforts with multiple industries to change the life for person with temporary or permanent physical disabilities being motor, visual, or auditory.

Examples are many:

In robotics, AI supported physical aids examples include:

• a prosthetic limb movement that uses artificial intelligence to mimic the motion of the user’s residual leg, making the act of walking smoother and more intuitive. Instead of relying on preprogrammed movements to drive their prosthetic it uses adaptive AI that could better learn in the moment how to move.
• the soft, assistive robotic glove for debilitated patients. With the help of this AI product, individuals can perform actions like bending their fingers, rotating, and twisting thumbs, grasping, and a few other movements of their hands. The aim of this innovation, as described by lead investigator and assistant professor at Wyss Institute, Connor Walsh, is “to restore independence for people who have lost the ability to grasp.”
• Intel and Brown University also have active projects working on connecting Brain and Spine, aiming at employing AI technology to restore movement for patients paralyzed by critical spinal cord injuries.

Another form of physical aids is enhanced mobility, applications include

• AI enhanced wheelchairs that work by facial expressions or are
• self-driving based on eye tracking
• self-driving cars aimed at people with disabilities.
• vehicles, like the Concept i-RIDE, though not self-driving, that create more automotive independence for individuals who use a wheelchair.

AI also revolutionized smart homes to enable independent living through

• voice technology used to control lights, adjust the heat, or air conditioning
• smart home hubs that learn your routine over time and anticipate your needs,
• systems that can adjust the thermostat with the weather forecast data.

Maybe soon, smart homes will include AI enhanced automation of furniture to support independent living and maybe we will witness smart cities offering AI enhanced accessibility for PWDs.

Employement

Existing examples include live captioning/translation/interpretation, text-to-speech, speech-to-text.

Community

Existing examples include video captioning, audio books, live captioning/translation/interpretation, AI-based visual aids, smarter glasses, cognitive hearing aid, sign-to-text, web-accessibility remedy solutions.