HCI Seminar - Cindy Bennett - Accessibility and Disability Considerations for Responsible AI

Abstract:
Generative (gen) AI is widely considered to have the potential to scale accessibility solutions. For example, users can turn on AI-generated captions on most virtual conference platforms and blind and low vision users can receive detailed image and video descriptions on demand, capabilities and scales unheard of until recently. However, greater responsible AI research shows how gen AI leveraged in particular domains (e.g., creative) is transforming professionals and threatening workers, such as artists who frequently work in precarious conditions. Further, gen AI exhibits bias in how it represents various groups of people. In this talk I will share two projects addressing these topics–(1) how disabled artists make their workflows accessible and negotiate recent gen AI advancements and (2) representational tropes participants with disabilities identified in AI-generated images. By sharing these projects I will show how gen AI exhibits potential to enhance disabled people’s work by relieving them of certain access barriers and taking over undesired administrative labor, but its wider favoring over hiring artists raises concerns about the cost of leveraging it as an accessibility tool. Further, AI-generated images represented people with disabilities extremely poorly, amplifying longstanding stereotypes which disabled advocates have countered for decades. I will argue that these limitations cannot be read separately from AI applied to solve perennial digital inaccessibility, but they must motivate multi-pronged approaches to outline responsible AI development.

Bio:
Dr. Cynthia Bennett is a senior research scientist at Google Research. She researches making technology-mediated experiences, such as those leveraging generative AI, accessible to and representative of people with disabilities while mitigating harmful applications. Prior, Bennett was a researcher at Apple and a postdoctoral Research Fellow  at Carnegie Mellon University, after receiving her Ph.D. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington. Bennett's research has been recognized with awards from top scientific publication venues and funding agencies in her field. She is also a disabled woman scholar committed to raising participation of people with disabilities in the tech industry.

This talk will also be streamed over Zoom: https://mit.zoom.us/j/96239100489.