Have you ever helped people use their computers by talking to them over the phone, without seeing their screen? It can be frustrating if they tell you mostly irrelevant details that bury the important stuff.
This is the major problem with image description by AI. AI has no idea why the image was posted, so it gives irrelevant details.
Human-written image descriptions are much better at communicating an image's purpose.
More accessibility tips: https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-make-posts-more-accessible-to-blind-people-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/
#FediTips #Accessibility
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services As someone who is totally blind, I find ai image descriptions to be extremely helpful. But in certain circumstances, such as alt text on Mastodon, in articles, etc. I do agree that human descriptions can often be much better. It depends on what is needed.
@dandylover1@someplace.social
Thanks for the reply, and for the valuable perspective. I hope the post is okay, but if you feel I should reword it please do let me know. Would you like me to make clear that in some situations the AI option is valuable?
The post was based on a discussion about this I had with another blind person on here, but the 500 character limit made it very compressed so some nuance may have been lost.
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services I'm not one of those peoplewho is offended by everything. Plus, I know you would never willingly mislead people. I just wanted to share this with you, since both do have their place. Sometimes, it's not possible to have something described by a human. I've also seen cases in which those who don't speak English well used ai to ensure that their images had alt text, which I actually found to be heart-warming.
@dandylover1@someplace.social
Thank you for sharing this, it brings good insight.
If AI is used for accessibility, that is great.
The discussion I had elsewhere with a blind person was mainly about abled people who were no longer bothering to do accessibility any more on the assumption that AI would deal with it all. I was trying to reach them with the post, and did not intend to be criticising the use of AI by disabled people.
Fedi.Tips