Stage: Main Stage

Despite the stunning advances in AI over the past decade, the so-called “deep learning” AI technology prevalent today has under-appreciated limitations and even poses societal dangers. Our speakers are world-renowned AI experts and AI “dissenters” who believe we need an AI that’s both more accountable and better able to produce common sense results.

Where Seleste and ARx are newcomers to assistive devices, Humanware is a highly respected, established player whose new StellarTrek also takes powerful advantage of technology advances but also parts way with the newscomers when it comes to technology architecture and form factors.

Like Seleste, ARx is another recently released device designed to take advantage of the technology tech platforms that surround everyday life with a private, minimally visible, heads-mounted device. Both the Seleste and ARx leaders will discuss what they’ve learned in the course of developing and testing their devices.

Rapid advances in phones, data networks, and hardware miniaturization always seem to be converging on the concept of that super useful, affordable, unobtrusive assistive device. Seleste launches this year with a pair of tech-enabled glasses that mark an important waypoint on that journey.

Learn how Apple’s Accessibility team is harnessing innovations across hardware, software, and machine learning to support users who are blind or low-vision. Hear what’s new in VoiceOver, and other vision accessibility tools across Apple devices.

Smart home technology, like Alexa, has been one of the biggest boons in recent years for people who are blind, and for people with disabilities altogether. Voice technology and AI help empower people in many ways, but one obstacle stands in its way: making it equitable. In this session, learn from Amazon about how they’re approaching the challenge ahead.

AI-based, synthetic audio description may have a place in some forms of accessible video content, but the artistry of the entirely human-produced audio descriptions Pixar produces set a creative standard no AI is likely attain, and that’s all for the good. Meet members of the Pixar team behind excellence in audio descriptions.

For developers of virtual reality games, there’s every reason to experiment with accessibility from the start, which is what the Owlchemy Labs team did with Cosmonious High, the 2022 release of a fun, first-person game situated in a inter-galactic high school that one reviewer said “has all the charm and cheek of a good Nickelodeon kids show.” And it reveals some of the earliest approaches to accessibility in VR.

People with disabilities and accessibility advocates are working to make sure the metaverse is accessible to everyone. This panel will delve into research on the challenges current virtual and augmented reality tools create for people who are blind or have low vision.The panelists will share their experiences using immersive technologies and explore how these tools can be used to enhance employment opportunities in hybrid and remote workplaces – but only if they are built with inclusion in mind.