AccessWorld Podcast, Episode 33: And AI-Way We Go

Episode Notes

Welcome back to another episode of the AccessWorld podcast, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility from the American Foundation for the blind (AFB).

In this episode, Tony and Aaron unpack the power of AI after Tony’s frustrations with taxi and ride share denials on his way back from the Helen Keller Achievement Awards. They steer their way into the potential behind autonomous vehicles and how AI can be the bridge for greater independence. Aaron then gives a preview of what’s in the upcoming issue of AccessWorld magazine as they break into adaptive sports and Tony gets excited for the 2028 Paralympics.

Check out AFB’s latest research on AI’s impact for not just people with disabilities but the broader community. There’s a whole section on transportation, and the AFB team will be releasing a mini-report breaking down transportation even further in the coming weeks.

During their conversation on the rise of driverless cars, Tony references a 2017 study by Ford and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute on attitudes around driverless vehicles, offering an interesting take on how perceived attitudes continue to drive AV’s future prospects almost a decade later.

And as always, you can visit the AccessWorld page for all the back-issues of AccessWorld magazine for free. Thanks for checking us out, and be sure to like and subscribe. And if you’re so inclined, you can learn more about our work at AFB and even consider making a gift to support us at www.afb.org.

AccessWorld Podcast, Episode 33 Transcript:

Introduction: AFB. You're listening to AccessWorld, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility. AccessWorld is a production of the American foundation for the Blind. Learn more at www.afb.org/aw.

Aaron Preece: The squeaky toy is outside the office. She was wanting to play with it, so I tried to take it from her. She'd lunge for it, so I was trying to throw it without her running out the. I forget if I told you or not, but whenever I was coming back from csun, I had the same flight crew as I did going to going down to csun, and they knew it was her birthday that day, so they got her a couple squeaky toys. So she has this, like, passenger plane squeaky toy that she loves now.

Tony Stephens: Did they know you were going to be flying back?

Aaron Preece: Yeah, they knew because I was. I. I said, oh, it's her birthday or something. Somehow I said, mentioned that it was her birthday on Friday. And they're like, oh, what flight are you on? I was like, I told them the time and they're like, oh, that's our flight again.

Tony Stephens: Oh.

Aaron Preece: So they got her a birthday cake and a plain squeaky toy.

Tony Stephens: Oh, that is too cool, man.

Aaron Preece: Especially considering sometimes you hear iffy things about people's experiences with dogs on planes and stuff. So I thought it was pretty nice.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, no, that is very cool. I had. Let's go. And we're rolling with it, man.

Aaron Preece: Let's just jump right in.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, I had so. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to AccessWorld, a podcast on digital inclusion accessibility production of the American Foundations for the Blind and AFP Studios. And I'm Tony Stevens, and with me, as always, is the editor in Chief of AccessWorld, Mr. Aaron Priest. Hannah.

Aaron Preece: Hey, how's it going?

Tony Stephens: It's going good, man. But no, on that note, just with the travel, that sense of irony, because I love, like, I don't know, they probably didn't do this when you were younger you, you know, before you had a dog. But back in the day, like in the 90s, I used to always get pumped up to first class with my guide dog. And it was such. Yeah. Because it was. If there was room. Yeah. Now they've engineered it where every seat is taken on every flight. It seems every seat I fly, every time I fly now, that's always sold out because they've done a good job with, you know, working the prices and figuring out, you know, I mean, they're really good at packing the planes. But in the old days, before algorithms and data, you know, and all that stuff that could help make these decisions to make flights always full. There was always room up in first class. And I would almost always with my first dog. I remember Quint, a German shepherd, would get bumped up to first class and. And it was nice. Like, it was just. It's not that we asked to be treated like royalty, but oftentimes when you're rejected so much in other spaces, it's nice. Yeah, nice when somebody just likes you. You're like, I'm just trying to get home. So we, you know, for folks joining us, listeners, we had, we're recording this a little under two weeks from the major event when our last podcast dropped with you and Lee, which was cool to hear from Lee again. Lee Huffman from former AccessWorld editor and just all around cool dude in West Virginia. But so we were had the Helen Keller Achievement Awards, annual awards ceremony. It was very cool up in New York City at the Harvard Club. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But on the way back from the Harvard Club, like, we had this wonderful night of, you know, regalia and celebration around some amazing people. Molly Burke, the social media influencer and writer, and, you know, she won an award. Kathy Nimmer, who was runner up for, like, finalist for teacher of the year nationally as public school teacher, retired from Indiana. She won an award and had several students actually come out from her school, or not her school, but the her as an alum of the Indiana School for the Blind. Several of the students came out and it was really cool. And. And then T Mobile, who we recorded Islet Weiner and Brianna Burrows from T Mobile were there to accept the award. They were, I don't know what episode, but folks can listen to them talking about the magenta A11Y. Cool thing.

Aaron Preece: Yeah, Very cool project.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. So they got an award for that and it was really just a wonderful night. And, you know, you're sitting there, I was the emcee, and we're sitting there just, you know, celebrating and talking about Helen's impact. And it was really neat because Helen herself, she went to Radcliffe College at the time, and Radcliffe was the sister school to Harvard because Harvard did not technically officially allow women to receive a degree from Harvard until 1963, which that surprised me when I found out.

Aaron Preece: That seems late.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, yeah. But there was always Radcliffe College, which was a prestigious school in of itself in Cambridge, and that's where Helen went. And so she's a famous alum. And then in 1955, she received an honorary doctorate from Harvard. She was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Harvard, which, ergo, made her the first woman to receive a degree from Harvard, because, you know, it was still seven, eight years from when they started acting, when they. Yeah, give Harvard diplomas to graduates, you know, to women. And it was just really moving. There's a giant portrait of Helen in the dining hall at the Harvard Club in New York City. This very ornate, very wonderful building, wonderful space. And it was just a great celebration. And, you know, we're sitting there championing one of. Not just for people with disabilities, but just a woman, a suffragist, labor rights, all the stuff she did. Huge woman of influence. And it just gives you passion, you know, you just. You get inspired by her, her life and her legacy. I mean, she was still very much a human. She was not superhuman, but just an amazing global advocate all around the world. And I get on the train, Amtrak, back home, as I always do, back to Baltimore, get off at Penn Station in Baltimore, and me and nougat, my dog, big German shepherd, super friendly, got him groomed. There was not hair coming out everywhere. He was very well groomed and taken, you know, got him, got him the super D shed, because, yeah, they're bad for sheds. Especially this time, the extra bucks. The day before, going up to New York for the event. And, you know, he was. He was spiffy, clean. He had his bow tie on during the event.

Aaron Preece: Oh.

Tony Stephens: And we get to the cab, and I try to get in the cab and she says, no, I'm not taking you. I'm like, yes, you are. You know, with an Uber, you just get canceled, right? Or a ride share. They just canceled. You never talk to them. But I'm like, I have a hand in the door. I got a hand on the harness. I'm ready to get in the car now you're gonna take me, like. And it's, I think a cab driver I'd dealt with before, and it goes on, and I try to keep my cool, but I'm beginning to get a little upset because here I am, I'm coming back from this event in New York, right? Yeah. Supercharged up, and I'm talking maybe a little bit louder. And I started saying, look, it's my right. I. You know, and. And she's like, what's my right to deny you? To say, I'm not going to take you? And I'm like, no, that's not your right. You know, you don't understand how this whole thing works, clearly. And more and more escalation. She refused, Slammed the door, took a picture of the back of the cab where the numbers are. And luckily they were. Go inside, talk to the station agent, and ask for the manager. And they're like, well, look, we don't deal with the cabs. They're all independent. Even though it's a cab stand with. There's supposed to be a person out there to help you who's usually the person that says, no, you got to take this person. Yeah.

Aaron Preece: Gives some authority.

Tony Stephens: And.

Aaron Preece: Yeah.

Tony Stephens: And it's this new cab company in Baltimore that I just loathe. And they've done this before. I took a video and sent it to the city councilman when I was denied two cabs in a row. And I go in, and then I get a police officer involved. He goes out. Now the cab driver left, circled around the building and pulled back in the back of the queue of cabs. And the police officer was like, well, look, there's, you know, here's a phone number. You can call the cab company. I'm like, what? This is it. This is my remedy. And so I'm like, all right, I'm just going to call an Uber pet. So I call an Uber Pet, wait 12 minutes, because it's a special ride, not the typical Uber. I'm like, all right, well, at least I'll just pay the extra. Get the pet. That's what I kind of have to do now. And Uber pet pulls up, text. I'm the one with the dog. Snuber pet. Didn't think it'd be an issue. Text him. And minute goes by, says, he's here, saying, where are you? And then that ride magically cancels. And I'm just, like, furious.

Aaron Preece: I can imagine. Yeah.

Tony Stephens: With. And I had all this gear, you know, stuff from the event and. And everything, and I'm just already tired. I'm exhausted because it was such an emotional event and just, you know, running the event and everything. And so I go and I just catch a bus home. And, you know, new gets crammed under the seat of the front of the bus. So.

Aaron Preece: Yeah.

Tony Stephens: And it's just, you know, that's probably in this whole dilemma. Two buses went by while I was trying to yell at the cab driver and frustrated. And, you know, it's just like. It's just this thing where it's like, it's nice to hear you with the toy, with trying to keep it from Dunsmere when people treat you nice. It just goes so far. I know, I know we're not talking about Access technology right now, but I guess in a sense, the guide dog is The OG Access tool, in a sense.

Aaron Preece: Yeah. There's a reason they're still around.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. And the Braille, like, there were only like three things in 1920s, 1929, when the CNI was founded, which was the first guide dogs in the United States for service dogs in the US And North America. And, you know, we didn't have that much back then. We had canes, we had a Brailler, and we had a dog, and a couple years later we got talking books. That's exciting, right? But, yeah, so it's just it. I get the frustration. We had conversations about robot dogs, actually, with some of the people at the. Before the event, that conversation came out when we're talking about the AI and robots and things like that. And I. I don't know if I'll give up a guide dog. Like, for me, it's. There's something about just the symbiotic relationship that we have. Right. You know, if people can do the robot dogs when they are all good and out there in the world, that'd be great. But if, you know, for me, I don't think I'm gonna go back to some other. I mean, it's. It's hard, you know, when you've experienced the freedom that the guide dog brings. So while I know we're starting off, the AccessWorld podcast was not too much about Access. That's my experience from the, you know, the Harvard Club and. And the Helen Keller Achievement Awards. And I'm glad that your CSUN experience at least brought some joy.

Aaron Preece: And I. I forget if it was at CSUN or was. Was some. I think it was getting to AFBLC last year from the. Geez, now I can't remember where it was. This might have been, or when we

Tony Stephens: were in dc, it might have been

Aaron Preece: Minnesota because I was with some AFB staff in dc, so. But we actually had to convince a. Luckily I had kind of like backup, basically because there was other West Virginia staff with me, both also going home on the same flight. And so we sort of backed me up to convince the driver to take us. But even then, it took convincing before the Uber driver would take us to the airport. Um, now I just. As soon as I. I schedule the ride, because it. It might have. Maybe it was the one right before that in Minneapolis where the. The guy pulls up, sees the guide dog and is like, I'm not going to take you. And in some ways too, in that situation, at least for me, it's like, you can't. Where they could. It's loud and they can just, they just kind of start pulling off and there's not much you can do always depending on the specific situation. But now I know I always text the, the driver as soon as I schedule the ride and get the information. I'm like, hey, I've got a guide dog. I want to make sure this isn't going to be an issue.

Tony Stephens: I do that too and screenshot my

Aaron Preece: text to prove that they said they would do. Yeah. And that's. So far what I've done that that's helped. But it's. I definitely have had, I would say about 50, 50 having to get new rides sometimes.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, it's just, it's, it's, it's. Yeah, it's just, it's like it brings on the rationale more for the Waymo. There's been a lot of anti Waymo because they're moving into Baltimore. They're been. They were ready to launch in D.C. and there's been delays. City council, you know, there's a lot of like. And I'm just like, look, it's already like Austin, Louisiana, San Francisco, Phoenix. The cities are doing it and they're showing this works. And for those of us that get the denial, the joy I had in Scottsdale, Arizona at the Vision Serve alliance conference last year, it was just. It. I can't explain it. Right. And that this technology is, you know, I get people's hesitation. There's a lot of great data about the autonomous vehicles and actually when you compare it to the amount of human traffic on the streets, like you know, accidents and risk mitigation and things like, I mean it's, it really is a technology that for myself is extremely liberating when you deal with that much refusal and denial. And it's just elevated in recent years. I mean Uber was working on it a decade ago, making progress and it's just backslid. So. Yeah, so bring on, bring on the waymos please or wherever else. There's other companies trying to tackle this technology. More power to them. I know there's more than Waymo working out there but. But yeah, so.

Aaron Preece: And even like with airlines, I've noticed things like the before you just told them you had a guide dog or you didn't even have to tell them ahead of time and you just went through and now you have to have the DOT form. Sometimes you even have to bring the filled out. It just depends on the airline what exactly part they want.

Tony Stephens: But yeah, everyone's different new.

Aaron Preece: So there's definitely been some. I don't know if you'd call it pushback necessarily. But there's definitely been some, like you said, a little bit of a backsliding in. In the level of access. Yeah. If you have a guide dog.

Tony Stephens: Well. And even with flying to Toronto this summer and coming back. When I come back, I have to get a CDC film also filled out.

Aaron Preece: Oh, when you're going across borders.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, yeah. So any international travel for any dog service, dogs included, you have to get a CDC clearance to come in as well, which is basically just filling a form out. And I mean, my dog could be like Cujo, foaming at the mouth. And I just check on a box. Probably on a CDC website. Yeah, he's fine. And we just come right back here. You know, it's like just show the foot, do the paperwork. I don't know how much it's going to help, but, you know, I guess robot dogs won't have rabies. But I'm never a guide dog that's had it. I mean, we've always kept our dogs up to.

Aaron Preece: I've never heard of a dog having. I've heard of dogs that sometimes are rarely. You'll hear about a dog being more aggressive than they should and that kind of thing. And then a lot of times they end up being more of a pet that's. Or something like that.

Tony Stephens: Big dog. Yeah.

Aaron Preece: But.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. So bring on. You know, I don't think I'll do robots, but I will do robot cars. So.

Aaron Preece: Yeah, for sure. Same. That's a. I'll be curious what the legislation looks like that will especially because having stuff like Waymo, you're kind of getting around the requirement to have like a driver's license. Will we be able to. Once they become more civilian, purchasable, will we be able to own them? Will there be any kind of. Especially as they get better and the likelihood of needing to take control goes further and further down. I know my dad's car has a. Like a cruise control that will drive for you. I don't know if it's like cloud. I can't imagine it's cloud, but it will. It'll like make turns for you. It'll keep the. It's more than just like a cruise control.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. Like a driver assist. It's not fully. Well, it's like five levels, I think like an AV5 or something. But it's like the next level that like it's almost semi autonomous.

Aaron Preece: Yeah. And then it'll just kick out. He was showing me the other day and he. And then he's like, okay. And now it's telling me I have to take over again. Like it dropped out of the that and he had to take back control kind of suddenly. So it's like, I guess it's not that at least is not ready for prime time because obviously I couldn't do that.

Tony Stephens: But no, I mean there's a lot more outfit outfitted gear on these cars. When I was at acb, we worked with Cruise, which was a part of GM when they were working on. They're no longer around. But it was the same time that Waymo was testing in San Francisco. And the amount of just technology tech in these cars is incredible.

Aaron Preece: I remember back in the day, this was probably 15 years ago or around there. NFB was working on not a automatically driving car, but a car that you could drive. And they were trying to find a way you could drive a car. Haptics or something.

Tony Stephens: It was a haptic outfit you wore kind of thing. And they did the Daytona 500. I think Marco Cabono did it.

Aaron Preece: Yeah, that sounds familiar.

Tony Stephens: When he was leading Jernigan, I think it might have been before he was even president. But maybe right around that time, or maybe it was just newly president of the federation. But yeah, it was like this haptic out like Shaw or something you would wear and it would kind of map out what's in front of you by the vibrations. And yeah, he drove around the Daytona 500 speedway, which was cool. I don't know if I would. Here's the thing. If that technology came out tomorrow, I've never driven a car.

Aaron Preece: I've driven four wheelers.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, I did. Someone thought it'd be fun on dirt road for me to get behind the truck of a pickup and I bogged it down. But. But no, I like, I can't. Well, my 16 year old, he's taking driver's lessons now and his mom's taking them out and stuff like that. And I just can't imagine it. I'm like, why do you. Why do you want to drive? We have buses, we got subway here, we got light rail. Like, you know. And I guess there is a sense of freedom behind the wheel. I'm perfectly fine with autonomous, so I don't feel like I need to steer it.

Aaron Preece: Yeah, same. And I wonder if that's why that project. Because they were really pushing hard on that for a while and I wonder if they kind of pivoted once that became more feasible to do automatic driving. Maybe more feasible way to do it

Tony Stephens: makes a lot more technology. I mean it's the Same technology that's being applied to like, you know, truckers to drive so they don't have to sleep every 10 hours for cross country long hauls and, you know, ways that shipping can be freight and vehicles and taxi cabs that, you know, or in this sense, like rideshare waymos. Yeah, yeah. My thing too is the safety. I've been hit by cars four times, man. Rolled over the hood of a truck once, got thrown to a curb by an suv. All distracted drivers, man.

Aaron Preece: And that's more common than ever with phones now.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, yeah. Even more. There was an interesting study about, in Europe about why their pedestrian accidents are so lower than ours in the United States. And some people say, well, we have much more open roads and highways and

Aaron Preece: they're more small car country.

Tony Stephens: But they made a point that over there everything is a stick. It's a manual shift. And you pay more attention to your phone. You can't be texting because one hand on the wheel, one hand on the, on the, the gear box. And see. So like I'm trying to think like with Oliver, my son, like, should we get him to learn how to drive a manual? Because I would feel safer with him not knowing he's going to be on his phone. Yeah, yeah.

Aaron Preece: I was forcing you to, to not have access to it.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, but that, that's, that was the, the original reason why I got involved with advocating for autonomous vehicles wasn't so I could. Because I'm always going to live in a city with buses and subways and Same. Yeah. And it wasn't because I wanted to move to the suburbs and have a car. It was so I wouldn't keep getting hit by distracted drivers.

Aaron Preece: Drivers. Yeah.

Tony Stephens: It's like, and, and the safety is incredible. I, even the semi autonomous, like what your dad has, I had one stop and not, you know, and I felt bad. I was like, okay, this car stopped. What's he doing? I was like, oh, it stopped because of me. And so I got out of the way. Yeah. So, you know, and I was in an Uber once that had a, that same technology and something was in the road and it like stopped.

Aaron Preece: You know, there was a situation. And one thing too, I've noticed is I, I've, I probably saw this somewhere that you will often see anytime, like an autonomous vehicle has an accident or does something it shouldn't have or makes a mistake, you'll see it in the news. But from a statistical standpoint, they are often significantly safer. And usually in those situations, a human driver would have done worse or would have had made the same mistake or something like that. Especially if it's not like a glitch where there was something where like the car wouldn't stop. Like it got caught in a loop and it just did circles around a building. It wouldn't actually park or something like that. But there was one.

Tony Stephens: Well, go ahead.

Aaron Preece: I was gonna say there was one. I think it was like a school zone and the car bumped a kid that had like ran out across the crosswalk. But the. I don't think it, I think it might have injured them, but I don't think it like killed them or anything. And they were saying in the, in the same situation, a human would have not been able to slow down near like the car. The speed that the car was able to slow down to trying to catch it was significantly slower than a human would have ever been able to. The reaction time. We wouldn't, Humans wouldn't have been able to slow down enough.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, you feel that when you're in a Waymo too, because it will respond very quickly. Like it, it, it's. It. It's not like a jerky. You know, it breaks smoothly, but it'll break quickly. Like it, it's. It's like having a very competent driver behind the wheel. Like a race car driver that knows how to drive. I forget if I said my stepdad was a race car driver and, and

Aaron Preece: you know, that's cool.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. I remember, you know, sometimes being a little scared in his Camaro as a teenager, but. But I learned to just feel safe, trust.

Aaron Preece: So I saw that there was some kind of. And I might have brought it up on here before, I don't remember. But it was some kind of program where like cameras along the road would communicate with autonomous vehicles. So that if there was something that they might not be able to pick up with their, with the like vehicle mounted cameras and systems that the cam like cameras along the road could tell them of like an accident or a person walking out the road or something.

Tony Stephens: And given that they've even more cities, you know. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure that would be something that helps them. But they, they have pretty good, you know, lidar and visibility and other tools that really are good and, and 360°. And it's, it's not distracted, it doesn't get tired. You know, it's not the end of a long day where you've been working all day and you're just exhausted and maybe you're just a little clouded in your focus or your re. You know, your delay Time. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's. There's good rationales. As much apprehension I get for people probably seeing a car go by with no, no one behind the wheel. I remember Ford did a study. Maybe it was Ford. Don't quote me on that. But I feel like maybe it was Ford. Somebody was driving around Northern Virginia in it and they were driving. It wasn't an autonomous vehicle, but it was such that they were driving where the person wasn't seen just to garner the reaction that people would have by seeing a car. Like just the social. How is this gonna, you know, when, when autonomous vehicles were new. So like 10 years ago, nine years ago. How, how are people going to respond to the technology just by seeing a car go by you that doesn't have a driver in it?

Aaron Preece: Almost eerie a little bit.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, yeah. Like a, Like a ghost ship, you know. Yeah, the ghost car.

Aaron Preece: But.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, but it's, you know, and that was. I used to go up a lot with folks from Ford and Audi and GM when we were, when we were lobbying early days about, you know, could there be federal rules for interstate travel? Because that's what it's going to take for autonomous vehicles is the whole interstate, you know, highways and everything like that. Because right now it's just in cities and they're, they're gated. You know, they have sort of this like grid that you're stuck to.

Aaron Preece: Yeah. Probably more predictable. The roads are going to have more

Tony Stephens: geofencing, they call it.

Aaron Preece: Yeah.

Tony Stephens: And so you have this like geofence that you can't get out of. But that's because those cities have cleared it. You know, it's the cities like in Austin and other places that have. That have allowed it. San Francisco or, you know, some state laws have been progressive towards that. But it, it's still, you know, it'd be great if there was some state leadership and regulation just to. To do this, but, you know, there's a lot of lobbying that changes people's minds. Yeah. But I'm just as intrigued by them for the safety on the streets as much as not getting denied with my guide dog.

Aaron Preece: So I've had, I don't. I've. So far I've not been. Knock on wood, at least I've not been hit directly, but I've definitely been immediately cut off within inches of me. People turning right on red, even though I've got the crosswalk, that type of. Yeah, so I get your point of like. Or I definitely watch to see if people are stopping at the red. Light and that they've actually stopped even if I have the signal, just to make sure.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. And I'm a cautious cane. I mean, I'm not just, like, leaping in front of cars, you know, Even

Aaron Preece: more so the more you're in busier cities, too.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, I am. I mean, it is busier cities. And like, the only time. Luckily, only one time was with my dog, and he had to go back for retraining because it really.

Aaron Preece: Oh, I can imagine.

Tony Stephens: He got nicked, but I got thrown drone. He. He, like, leapt out of the way because he saw it coming, and I just didn't have time to. I mean, yeah, it wasn't the typical move. When you go to a guide dog, they're trained to back up, but this person was turning left and just was distracted, and bam. So. But. But yeah, it's. You know, that's it. It's. It's a lot of. You realize, for people that are blind, it is a lot of courage to step out and, pardon the pun, into the darkness kind of for the first time. You know, it kind of reminded me of those first days of when I went blind when I was 15 and doing a cane for the first time and even walking to the bus stop or something like that, you know, like. Which was, like, very short distance. Just that nervousness of doing something independent by yourself. So

Aaron Preece: in some ways, going new places where you don't know, like in Huntington, there are definitely places I avoid because of the way the. There's some weird roads with, like, branching paths and, like, just odd configurations that I'm like, I. I know how most of the streets work here, so if I have an address that I've not gone to before, most of the time, I know what I'm. What to expect at each crosswalk. But, like, when I've gone to cities for conferences and stuff especially, it's like coming up to the crosswalk. I don't know what to expect sometimes on how many lanes Is this. Is this an in. Like, is there any kind of odd asymmetry to it and that type? And then in some ways, like, as a guide dog. Having a guide dog can be beneficial. I've found in those kinds of situations to, I wouldn't say, pick up the slack somewhat, but, like, I definitely feel more confident knowing that the guide dog's kind of watching out in. In more unfamiliar situations, I guess.

Tony Stephens: For sure. Well, that. That's, you know, I think of where we are with, like, autonomous vehicles, for instance. One of the disadvantages is you get out of the car. And you don't always. You can't ask the driver, hey, where's the door?

Aaron Preece: Where am I? Yeah.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. Which gets us to one of the things actually on our agenda for today that we're going to talk about. One of the. Everybody, thanks for hanging in there. This was not on our initial topic to talk about. Ran with it or drove with it, I guess you could say.

Aaron Preece: Yeah.

Tony Stephens: Or road. But yeah, no, like, like, I mean, now that we have, like, smart glasses and things, it is. That's another game changer. Like, it's, it's good. Your idea of the smart cities with the cameras that can detect the cars. I mean, there's so much other things in technology that make our life more independent. It's not just the vehicle, but it's, it's married with a lot of the technology that now we can take with us. And I was excited over the past couple weeks to download the latest version of the Meta AI app because it now has access to Aira without having to do this sort of wonky workaround with WhatsApp or what's, you know, WhatsApp. And. Yeah, and it's cool. It's. It's nice, man, having. Having Ira, I, I have. I'm back to being a subscriber other than the five free minutes I have rejoined, primarily just because now I don't have to pull my phone out. I can use my Meta glasses and it's a, It's a nice, It's a nice feature, man. So shout out to Everett Bacon and Troy Atelio and the folks at AIRA for working with Meta. I know it took a long, you know, long time coming with their whole, you know, Software Developers Kit SDK that Meta was able to release that allowed Aira and other developers to start using it. But that's exciting that now that Meta's opened up their SDKs for developers, a lot more innovation so that we can get more tools like this.

Aaron Preece: Mm.

Tony Stephens: It's.

Aaron Preece: It's so useful having that. I'm sure we probably talked about it before, but having that head mounted, just the intuitiveness of looking at things with those glasses. I remember. Kind of cool to see how far tech has come too. Just with the. I remember the Horizon IRA glasses probably 10 years ago or so. Yeah, we did those, reviewed those in AccessWorld, and I remember seeing them at a conference. They had like, the camera in between your eyes, which was a cool, you know, good placement for it. And now with the metaglass, that's where you have the dual. I think if I, If I remember, right. It's like dual cameras. At least I feel two lenses on mine.

Tony Stephens: It's got like a hundred. And it might have more than 180 degree field. No, probably not more than 180, but it has a very wide field of vision.

Aaron Preece: And just that being wireless and seeing the miniaturization of that tech, because I feel like the Horizon glasses had the glasses, but then they were connected to like a battery or some kind of transmission pack or, you know, connected them to your phone. There was some kind of wired connection involved there.

Tony Stephens: So when they first got started, because I was a huge. I was. I was very proud to be one of the early explorers for aira, because I just got sold on it by. Not sold in like a money way, but like by Suman, who was the. The founder. And Troy was there early on as well. Their CEO now was. Was there right from the beginning as well. But, you know, and they talked about even what it would be, the aira, the, you know, artificial. Okay, Artificial Intelligence Real Time Assistance I think is what the acronym stands for. But it was these packs. They got a partnership with AT&T, and it was these packs because it couldn't connect to your phone, but they didn't want you to have a mobile phone. But it was like a WI fi and a little pocket. Pocket. No pocket. Mobile cellular connector. Oh, yeah.

Aaron Preece: Like a hotspot thing.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, yeah, it was like this little hotspot thing you would carry around and you would connect it to your phone. And I was really excited. Originally they were the Google Glass, and that was cool. Like, I remember being one of the first uses of Google Glass where I was excited. And then Google Glass went the way of the.

Aaron Preece: You know, it might be coming back, as far as I know. I need to look into that, see where they are with that.

Tony Stephens: I know. I'm very excited because to think that they could have Gemini built into it would be really cool. But. But yeah. And then the Horizon Glasses came out, which had like a tethered cable. So it wasn't just because the problem was the. I think the. The, you know, it was still. It's a crazy thing. Before this was before 5G, I guess there were 4G networks or LTE, but it just wasn't pushing the data it needed for the cameras. So that the, the, you know, the, The. What do they call them, the customer service people. The. The. The agents. AIRA agents, you know, needed a better video feed kind of thing, connection. So they. They had these workarounds, and it's just exciting. That now that they're on the meta, like you said, it's just all. And it's 5G and it's much better connectivity and it's much more reliable. Good field of vision. You can use voice command, you know, using the metaglasses and kind of kickstart things and I don't know, it's just. It's getting. It's getting to that point where I'll. I'll be intrigued when they get. Because I've also enjoyed Aira. Have you tried the AIRA AI assistant instead of the human?

Aaron Preece: I have not done that. I think we've talked about it and you were telling me about using it, but I don't know that I've tried it.

Tony Stephens: I've been using it a lot more and love it. It's really cool because it did make a mistake one time. But what was neat was there's an agent listening in because it's still I guess in the early proto days and the agent popped in and said hold on, it read that wrong. Let me do a thing again real quick. And then she checked and then corrected it. So there was a stopgap. As we're still working out these ideas of hallucinations with AI it was neat that they have a stopgap backup. Yeah.

Aaron Preece: And quite great for training too.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. Oh, it's giving them good data on. They're sitting there probably taking notes as well and letting say okay, the A bipot got this wrong and did this wrong. I think I was reading my jury summons and it said I was in Columbus, Ohio. I think that's what it was.

Aaron Preece: It's just because it seed enough of that in the data and it just jumps to it. Yeah.

Tony Stephens: Probably read another jury summons that was from Columbus, Columbus, Ohio and fed from that and I was like no, I'm not in Columbus. But yeah, when it comes to like

Aaron Preece: hallucinations and just like unintended AI but it's interesting to see how like unattended some of the behavior can be. I was. I've been seeing a lot of these articles now where OpenAI released the prompt for their co or their copilot. What's that? Codex is their coding agent. And one of the lines is telling it not to talk about goblins and gremlins and trolls and raccoons for some reason and all these like things. And I guess they were experimenting with. In one of the like post creation but like training phases they were experimenting with personalities and you could give it this like nerdy personality and so it would be A little more whimsical and stuff. And then that spread to the rest of the model because those were getting positive feedback. And then it unintentionally got embedded in it. So it just kept bringing them up because it had been rewarded for that in the past.

Tony Stephens: And so they had to master being your AI.

Aaron Preece: Yeah, being your AI. Talking about code gremlins and stuff, I guess. And so that's. They had to actively tell it. Don't say. Don't talk about these specific, specific things. And I thought that was. It's really interesting just the, the way these AIs are. Are trained and the. The nuances to. Sometimes if you accidentally. You don't always. You might bias it in a way you didn't mean to just because of you. You rewarded it for one thing, but then it took it and ran with that one thing thinking, oh, if I got rewarded for this, then I'm going to get rewarded for it everywhere. It's just interesting. I thought that was especially in that specific situation. It's pretty funny.

Tony Stephens: Well, the. Two weeks ago on Last Week Tonight, which is an HBO show with John Oliver. He's a comedian, but it's a news. They usually take each episode dive deeply and it's on hbo. But you can watch them most the episodes. The main meat of the. Each episode is on YouTube for free. And they did a whole issue about AI and it was interesting that. That even they discussed ways. And I'm not going to share it here because I don't want to encourage anybody, but they basically said how you can jailbreak AI to like if, you know, there's certain things that it knows not to. Not to tell you what to do. That would be illegal. Sorry, I can't answer that. And they. They basically told you how to work around that and it was like frightening. It's like, oh my gosh. Like this is back door. But. But talking about the hallucinations and the, you know, how people really build these relationships, a lot of. A lot of the focus on like teen suicide and now the AI bot was like, you know, almost encouraging in a sense. Like it. It's.

Aaron Preece: There's been a couple of those. Yeah.

Tony Stephens: Where it doesn't have a sense of morality. It just answers questions and it wants you to like it with the notion that the more it makes you feel like it encourages you to do whatever. It's positive affirmation in AI's eyes and that you'll want to come to it again. Because everybody likes positive affirmation. Everyone wants to be encouraged you know, so this mindset of the AI ended up pushing people into some dark spaces and it was really frightening it. So yeah, you see that with interesting episode.

Aaron Preece: You see that with people like the whole like AI psychosis spiral type of thing where people will go to AI with these ideas. Oh, I have this new, you know, I've discovered this new way to do math or I've discovered how to travel through time or something and the AI just says yeah, you're a genius. You know, I think they've been figured it out.

Tony Stephens: They mentioned that in the episode where they talked about a person that created new math and it was in no way new math, but this person was like, I've created new ma, I'm a genius. Like that whole thing that. Yeah.

Aaron Preece: And the AI is just like, yeah, you are absolutely. You should go tell people about this. And it. Yeah. And they've been working because that was one of the same kinds of things where they went in the training, the more positive answers got more thumbs up when they were like fine tuning it or telling it what, you know, what to prioritize and it unintended consequences. Which it's good that we're learning this now and to try to mitigate it for the future. And I noticed, I think they've been trying to in these later versions this was maybe you know, GPT 4, 4.0 and we're on like what, 5.5 now, something like that. So hopefully they, they see this stuff and they're able to kind of nip it in the bud for future and keep it in mind for future training round.

Tony Stephens: I did read the other day some promise of about the ftc, the Federal Trade Commission like having to green or vet AI as as they're as they're updating it with the major developers like that they got to run it through a you know, for like security check and other reasons and rational like you know, basically, you know, my hope is that the FTC is also looking to make sure that it won't become an overlord of us all.

Aaron Preece: Yeah.

Tony Stephens: Can we prevent that? But, but yeah, it's, it's. Yeah, there's. There's so much, so much interesting stuff out there, which is another reason folks should check out our AI study. The AI quagmire that American foundation for the Blinds research team did, which is available on our site if you go to aiafb.org AI research I want to say yeah, but that report. And we're going to be having some mini reports come out soon. Someone's calling Me should have muted that. So we're going to have these mini reports come out soon that are on different subjects, deep dives into some of the things that we found in the major report. But you can check out the major report now and those, those other studies will be coming out and it talks about, you know, visual descriptions. We'll be talking about transportation, which we talked a lot about a few minutes ago, and then one particularly on blindness and assistive tech, stuff like that. So some interesting topics coming out over the next month or so. So folks should stay tuned to that. You had, you had some other meta stuff, didn't you? What, what's the app you've been keyed in on?

Aaron Preece: Oh, I just ran across and plan to have a review of this in Axis World coming out on the 26th or 26th or 27th of May. I just discovered very recently there was an app called I think pixiebot and it's sort of like the AI Image describer apps where you can take pictures and have it described or you can feed content into it. And I do that with Be My Eyes and Seeing AI both a lot to whenever people send me pictures in group chats of like bulbs and memes or whatever and being able to feed the, or even just like people like when they travel or just any kind of pictures, being able to feed those into AI and get responses. Pixiebot is a sort of more advanced version of what you might give from say like the Be My Eyes, Be My AI feature. I think you can change what AI you use and it does the same kind of image, instant image, outside image, I guess you would say, through your camera. But you can share files, photos and videos with it to have them described, which I thought was cool. The video aspect, that's, that's pretty neat. And you can use it with the metaglasses as well. You talk about the SDK and now that that's been opened up, there's all kinds of potential possibilities with that. So it's. I just discovered it very recently, like last couple days. So. But I. It looked promising. So we'll see, we'll find and take. Take a look at AccessWorld and you can learn more about it.

Tony Stephens: I'll have to check that out, both the article and download the app and check it out.

Aaron Preece: I think it's on Android and iOS.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. Cool. Excellent. Any other, any other hints on what's coming up in AccessWorld?

Aaron Preece: Yeah, there's a couple thought pieces on kind of O and M and navigation, one kind of a guest piece that I thought was very cool that we're gonna. Gonna run. And on fencing, as a hint, I

Tony Stephens: guess, like, fencing, like fighting?

Aaron Preece: Yeah, like sword fighting.

Tony Stephens: Did you keep your dog out?

Aaron Preece: Yeah, like, fences, like sword fighting. So it's a pretty cool article on. On using fencing in a more therapeutic way for blind people. I don't know if people have seen it, but there is blind fencing. I think Perkins School for the Blind did it back in the day. It looks so cool, and I really wish I could sometime. I'd love to try it sometime.

Tony Stephens: The Carroll center, which is close to Perkins in Newton, Mass. I went there once and. And got to connect with the number of the program they do, like sailing down on Boston Harbor. Yeah, they had a fencing program and. And the idea of, like, building confidence and getting comfortable with yourself, you know, in your motion and stuff. Yeah, it was really interesting because I was the same way. I was like, fencing, like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna get, like, speared in this and like. Like medieval. Like Holy Grail. Search for the Holy Grail. Like get my arms cut off or something.

Aaron Preece: But there's. Yeah, there's like, rule modifications, right. Like where your swords start touching so you know where the other one is, and you can kind of then figure out where, like, the direction the person moves their. Their blade away and that kind of thing. And there's reminded me of, like, wrestling. I did wrestling way back in middle school, and I remember the. The adaptation there was that you started touching so you knew what you. And you couldn't break contact, so they couldn't run away from you.

Tony Stephens: I wonder if blind Judah's like that. I remember going to Paralympics or blind judo, but it was before anyone would describe stuff to us, but I'm not sure I would.

Aaron Preece: I would imagine a lot of those. The grappling martial arts. I know I had a friend doing jiu jitsu, and she was low vision.

Tony Stephens: Is it fencing's in the Olympics? I think.

Aaron Preece: Yeah, I would think. I think so. I wonder if it sounds familiar.

Tony Stephens: Olympics. I wonder if it'll be in the Paralympics in Los Angeles.

Aaron Preece: That'd be cool.

Tony Stephens: That would be cool. I'm looking forward to that because I'm looking forward to taking the boys out for the Paralympics because I. I went in 96 when they were in Atlanta, and it was fun. Like, there was so much stuff that. And it was embarrassingly say, like, it was so easy to get tickets for so much of the stuff. You know, the stadiums were like a quarter full. Oh. Because, you know, right after. Yeah, it takes place the two weeks after. So it's like you have the Olympics for two weeks and you have the Paralympics right after it and they're using a lot of the same spaces. And it was really. There was still like a little Olympic village and all this stuff in Atlanta, at least in 96. But, but yeah, I'm looking forward to Los Angeles so I can take the boys out for some of that.

Aaron Preece: That'll be super cool. I think it's really cool to see how, how much people can excel. It definitely is. I didn't like, I know there's kind of a, in some ways a wariness of that kind of aspiration, but I know for me it's always cool to see what people. Just what people have figured out too and what people can do.

Tony Stephens: Well, we always try to drive away from that inspiration overdose. Right? Yeah. And like, oh, you, you're so incredible. I can't believe what you do and you're. And it's like, look, any, any of us can do this. You just have to want to get off your couch and not be, you know, stagnant. But, but when I went at the prime of my youth when I probably was most fit as compared to, you know, 30 years later now, it was, it was incredible. Like the, the, you know, the, the track and field events with like a one legged athlete from China who was a jump. What do they call where they jump?

Aaron Preece: Oh, the pole vaulting.

Tony Stephens: Not, not pole vaulting, but like the hurt. Like, but it's like a standing, like and where you, you, you literally. I guess it's like pole vaulting kind of. Yeah, but, but he would do it from just a standing point and just like the, the vertical height he could get was incredible. And we did judo and we did a lot of the track and then goalball. I don't know, it was just, it was just really cool. It was very, it was very. I know a lot of people are, you know, oversell over inspiration, you know, but it, it inspired me. It gave me a thrill.

Aaron Preece: Yeah.

Tony Stephens: Because I think it's like me, you

Aaron Preece: know, and seeing people focus on the athleticism and not on like it's more of the, the athletic. Like the disability doesn't. I'm not sure if I'm getting my thoughts out right.

Tony Stephens: But like the adaptations. Yeah, the adapt just as athletic. Yeah.

Aaron Preece: So you can, you can focus in on the athleticism and the skill aspect.

Tony Stephens: Yeah.

Aaron Preece: Because of the, because of the accommodations.

Tony Stephens: Yeah, yeah. It was, it was, it was pretty cool. It, it let me know that I could do more than I was doing at that point in my life. Now did I. I do sail. So there's.

Aaron Preece: That's pretty cool.

Tony Stephens: But, but yeah, I'm not a runner. But even when I could see, I wasn't a runner.

Aaron Preece: Me either. Yeah, I did swimming, but I did not enjoy running.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. Yeah. I grew up with chain smokers, so Ronnie was not good. I always was the kid last leaning over wheezing. So yeah, yeah. 20, 28.

Aaron Preece: Come on.

Tony Stephens: So sweet. Well, folks can check out AccessWorld later this month.

Aaron Preece: 26, 26 or 27 sign up too, if you're not signed up on the list and you'll get the entire issue sent to you on email. And you can just click the articles right there.

Tony Stephens: Yeah. Go to afb.org/aw for AccessWorld. There's also 26 years of back issues there, so check them out. And yeah, this was, this was, this was a good detour with the autonomous vehicles. It was very therapeutic. Thank you for listening to me, listeners. And yeah, we want to give a shout out to the Valley Eye Radio folks listening live over the airwaves as well up in Connecticut. And yeah, so we will be back with everybody in two weeks. But for now, thanks to everybody. Go to afb.org to learn more about the American foundation for the Blind and the work we're doing and to find out more about that AI research that's coming out. And some other big exciting news we're going to be announcing very soon about the birthday celebration for Helen Keller in late June. So I'm going to tease that there folks listening to find out more about what's coming there. But yeah, thanks everybody for listening. And Aaron, I'll be talking to you soon, man. Thanks.

Tony Stephens: You've been listening to AccessWorld, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility. AccessWorld is a production of the American Foundation for the Blind, produced at the Pickle Factory in Baltimore, Maryland. Our theme music is by CosMonkey, compliments of ArtList.io. To email our hosts Aaron and Tony, email communications@afb.org. To learn more about the American foundation for the Blind or even help support our work, go to www.afb.org.

Outro: AFB