Ai Rant - Tumblr Posts
My main job is making sure schools in my region are providing resources for students who require accommodations for learning. Like assistive technology, therapies, etc.
Not a single one of these students uses AI. We have a high school student that uses tobii dynavox to speak and write words with eye gaze and they help run the fucking school paper! The idea that AI is being pushed as assistive technology, and that it's somehow ableist to not provide it, is absolutely ableist in and of itself. It assumes that people with disabilities, physical or developmental, haven't the mental capacity for independent thought, and thus need a fucking computer to think for them (or put their thoughts in order, which, again, there are already hundreds of tools out there for this that don't include AI)
I have students who are developmentally delayed to an extent that language of any capacity is not currently within reach for them, but guess what? Their worth is not measured by whether they can compete in a writing competition. Honestly. There is a difference in providing equity for people with disabilities, and using disabled people's plight as a an excuse to push AI agenda.
With the paraolympics right now, we see accessibility equity at it's finest! You don't see robots (or people, for that matter) going out there and doing the events for them and calling it equality. I have a blind and deaf student who does wrestling. A student with a prosthetic leg that runs track AND does poll vault. A student with down syndrome in the top 10 who recently received a scholarship for a docuseries they made with their iPhone. One of my former students now in college who also uses an eye gaze device is working on developing software to optimize eye gaze for electronic drawing.
The general consensus with all of these students who receive accommodations is that AI is a cop-out. It's cheating. Wanting to do something, and not being able to, is not a good enough reason to cheat. Just like wanting to win a race, but not being the fastest, isn't a good enough reason to take a shortcut.