Advancing AI
Harnessing Humanities to open new Opportunities Around disabilities
In October 2023, Taylor Randall, president of the University of Utah, announced a new research initiative focused on artificial intelligence that aims to responsibly use advanced AI technology to tackle societal issues. In response, the U’s College of Humanities has proposed a new center to bridge campus, community, and industry partners to address the
complexities and opportunities AI may afford individuals with disabilities. This will be the first national center to bring together experts in humanities, social sciences, communication, disability studies, research ethics, computer science, law, psychiatry, population health, and many other disciplines, collectively building a sustainable and community-engaged
AI is creating more possibilities for inclusiveness of individuals with disabilities
platform for scholarly activities focused on the ethical, legal, and social implications of AI with respect to disability.
A first-of-its-kind, the proposed center will focus on integrating humanities scholarship into AI design as it impacts people and communities with disabilities. More than a quarter of the U.S. population—about 61 million people—currently live with or identify with a disability.
Avery Holton, chair of the Department of Communication and project director of the proposed center, said there are abundant possibilities for new pathways through the center’s collaborative efforts. “Now we have real opportunities to work together with organizations and communities to ask difficult questions about AI and how it fits into our daily lives,” Holton said.
The proposed center will focus on three key aims:
- Understanding disability and the lived experiences of people with disabilities, and AI.
- Exploring interrelationships between AI, identity, and agency.
- Considering data, disability, and ethical applications of AI.
Along with new pathways, Holton discusses the personalized approach AI has for different types of disabilities and their accommodations.
“Rather than AI being built for individuals with disabilities or being modified later for uses by individuals with disabilities,” Holton said, “it’s being created from the start, in many cases, for and by individuals with disabilities.”
“As AI becomes ever more powerful...we need to explore human rights beyond freedom of expression and conscience, to consider a right to freedom of thought.
This unique experience gives individuals with disabilities more of a seat at the table, where AI techniques can cater directly to those individuals throughout the process. Holton describes the involvement of people with disabilities as “critical” and as the “upstream part of the process,” encompassing the importance of inclusion in disability studies.
“From artificial limbs with cognitive response mechanisms, AI-assistive programs that allow individuals with physical paralysis to navigate virtual worlds, and systems that invite new forms of cognitive programming, AI is creating more possibilities for inclusiveness of individuals with disabilities,” he said.
With an interdisciplinary approach, AI can address multiple perspectives, allow for personalized assessments, and can allow for those with either or both physical disabilities and mental disabilities to be a part of the process.
In the creation and utilization of AI, legal and ethical aspects need to be considered when assessing the benefits and risks of the tools. Leslie Francis, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Law and co-director of the proposed center, discusses how she has used her background in philosophy and law to study anti-discrimination in disabilities and hopes to help people with disabilities get improved civil rights. She describes advancements in AI as being a modifier to the world that can become an enabling tool instead of a helpful one.
“Stephen Hawking famously selected the voice to speak for him,” Francis said, “but how should we be thinking about ChatGPT helping people with autism to negotiate social situations or providing therapy for adolescents with depression?”
Until they lead to more control over and less autonomy in an individual’s life, the tools are beneficial, said Francis.
Francis highlighted the awareness of the advantages and disadvantages for AI as a part of better understanding and improving methodologies. “A prosthetic leg using AI to help navigate local conditions in real time will also reveal sensitive information about the individual’s location,” she said, citing one example.
According to Francis, the complexities of utilizing AI technologies and the requirement of law-making to be included for fairness are critical. Other aspects to look at when balancing the effects of AI are potential risks involved with a learning system and those systems developing “a mind of their own,” she said. Because private information could be shared, it is necessary for the involvement of laws and technology that protect an individual’s rights.
“As AI becomes ever more powerful—say, developing the capacity to identify what you might be thinking—people are arguing that we need to explore human rights beyond freedom of expression and conscience, to consider a right to freedom of thought,” Francis said. As students and educators navigate the utilization of AI, a deeply unified collaboration among experts will play a key role in addressing some of the challenges individuals with disabilities face.
Due to the complexities and opportunities AI affords individuals with disabilities, the College of Humanities looks forward to an interdisciplinary approach to better understand the lived experiences of people with disabilities, to foster inclusive and responsive forms of communication, to challenge attitudes and behaviors toward people with disabilities, to improve personalized and individual support through tailored communication and engagement, to build and amplify advocacy and ally narratives, to inform law and policy around disability, and to center ethics and individual rights in ways that benefit all people, including those with disabilities.