Error-Prone AI Accessibility Tools Reportedly Lead to Navigation Issues for Blind Internet Users
April 7, 2024
AI-powered accessibility overlays on websites frequently mislabel or misinterpret content, in turn complicating navigation for blind users and others with disabilities. Users report that the AI tools interfere with screen readers and mislead them with inaccurate descriptions. The reported unreliability in these tools have prompted legal action, as the companies behind them seek compliance with accessibility laws.
- Alleged deployer
- zara, pemex, lvmh, capita, companies-using-ai-based-accessibility-tools
- Alleged developer
- equalweb, userway, developers-of-ai-based-accessibility-tools
- Alleged harmed parties
- blind-people, visually-impaired-people, jakob-rosin
Source
Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/830
Data source
Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).
When citing the database as a whole, please use:
McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.
Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide
We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.