Artificial Intelligence, Accessible and Assistive Technologies: Introduction to the Special Thematic Session

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for at least 70 years, as have digital technologies and yet the hype around AI in recent years has begun to make some wary of its impact on their daily lives. However, in this special thematic session authors will be illustrating how increased speed of data crunching and the use of complex algorithms have boosted the potential for systems to be used in ways that can be helpful in unexpected ways, in particular when thinking about assistive technologies. The black box nature of AI may be alarming; with its apparent lack of transparency, but it has enormous potential to make digital content, services and systems more accessible and helpful for people with disabilities. The following series of papers related to these issues propose new and innovative ways of overcoming concerning issues with positive approaches to reducing barriers for those with disabilities.