Role of AI for Disabled Persons
Introduction to AI
Around the 1950’s the Artificial Intelligence was invented, but today AI is more common because of higher quantities of data, algorithms and advancement in computer power and storage capacity. Artificial Intelligence or AI is the development of the computer system capable of doing work easily involving human intelligence such as visualisation, voice recognition, the exclusion of new abilities, decision making and translation. This combination enables us to develop technological innovation that benefit the society.
Many people may find a future of robotics and advanced energy, but AI unlocks a world of accessibility for disabled people. In the area of connectivity, mobility and independent living for the disabled person, the AI has already met tremendous progress for them.
AI in Blindness
Blindness can be defined as when a person have lost the ability to see with both of the eye permanently or temporarily. So this disability happens when any part of the eye is damaged especially optic nerve and beside that, there are also areas of the brain called the occipital lobe, which when damaged person will not be able to see. According to the World Health Organisation WHO Statistics, the international clarification of Disease 11 (2015), vision impairment can be defined into two types, firstly type, the distant vision impairment and second type, near vision impairment. Distant Vision Impairment is where the person loses the ability to see far whereas near vision impairment is the where the person loses the ability to see the things or the object nearby.
AI Technology can help those with vision impairment. So glasses like eSight Glasses can allow those with serious eye conditions to achieve 20/20 enhanced visuals again. So they can see clearly like a normal person. Basically, the eSight is electronic glasses which seems for the blind people as if the device is a virtual pair of eyes. eSight works on the principle of stimulating synaptic activity from the remaining photoreceptors of the patient eyes. Furthermore, the device uses a cutting edge camera, smart algorithms, and high resolution screen to provide the brain naturally work the view of the user. Recently in July 2020, eSight 4, the newest version has been also announced with a better and advanced upgrades in it.
LookTel is an Application that has been recognised as the powerful technology to add visual disability and people who are blind. So this application allow those with visual impairment to scan the objects and therefore identify it and the application will tell the person the identity of the object that they person scanned. If for example, the application can be used to scan the notes and the coins, and convey the amount of money that the disabled people have to pay. This application can be downloaded in the phone in both iOS and AndroidOS. This application has been developed under the National Institute of Health (NIH) sponsorship.
HueAI solves the colour blind disabilities. Colour-blind disability is when a person doesn’t have the ability and unable to see a colour or a certain colour. And these colours can be blue, red, yellow and green. HueAI uses the same technology in space exploration and they combine it with medical domains, robotics to create a re-image version of colour products. HueAI does not only make glasses but also make the contact lenses. These both optic product thus help in boosting the courage of the colour blind people and motivate them to do their daily work.
AI in Hearing Loss
People with hearing loss disabilities are those who are not able to hear as someone with normal hearing, which affects both of the ears or one ear. The people with this disability have difficulty in hearing composition and loud sound. Besides that a person with mild to severe hearing loss is known to have “hard of hearing” and that person will have very little or no hearing. According to World Health Organisation WHO Statistics, about 5% of world’s population have disabling hearing loss, most of them live in low and middle income. Disabling hearing loss affected one third of the people over 65 years old age residing from South Africa, Asia Pacific and Sub Saharan Africa Region.
There are two AI Technologies which help people with hearing loss abilities, firstly, Google Live Transcribe and secondly, Google Sign Language.
Hearing Aid which is a strong battery-powered electronic device that are worn in or behind the ear. The hearing aid produces a lot of sound so the person with hearing loss can listen, communicate and do a daily life activity easily. It also helps people to hear more in both quiet and noisy situation. However one out of five people benefit from it.
Google Live transcribe is a user friendly application that uses automatic space recognition technology. The microphone of the smartphone picks up spoken text and uses the internet to convert the speech to text for people with hearing disabilities to read it in addition to providing correct punctuations and thus understanding the context. It is also useful for people who are deaf and attending conferences. This technology works for around 69 million different language.
Google Sign Language is an App which is capable of interpreting those hand signals and converting them into speech and text. This software will make it easier for those who have hearing and speech issue to communicate with others. Moreover, Microsoft Teamed up with the National Technical Institute and created a presentation translator. This app uses camera to track the hand of the user’s motion and gestures and interpret it accordingly.
Conclusion
Through Artificial Intelligence, a system is produced to learn the environment and become the main core of the relationship between the humans, physical and digital equipment. AI is one of the most exciting technological breakthroughs in the history of mankind. Today’s technology are not only adopted by normal people but also by the disabled people.
Artificial Intelligence is very beneficial for disabled people and thus ensure that the people with disabilities are not left behind.