The call for presentations at this year’s IDGS notes that the “digital landscape presents opportunities for innovation and collaboration” and that “we can ensure that the digital world becomes a place where all voices are heard and valued, regardless of ability”. But what if the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) results in sub-standard accommodations for people with disabilities and even takes jobs from the population we strive to serve?
Audio Description provides a verbal version of the visual—the visual is made verbal, and aural. Using words that are succinct, vivid, and imaginative, audio description conveys the visual image that is not fully accessible to a segment of the population—new estimates by the American Foundation for the Blind now put that number at over 31 million Americans alone who are blind or have difficulty seeing even with correction.

When I teach AD at sessions around the world, I focus a great deal on the crafting of the language used—but 99% of all AD is written to be heard. A voice talent trained in voicing techniques for AD is critical to the success of the effort to translate a visual image to the spoken word. Increasingly, in the spirit of “Nothing About Us Without Us,” that voice talent is a person who is blind. Thus, AD is not only for people who are blind but *by* people who are blind.

It seems as though we are on the cusp of AI dominance in all manner of endeavor. Speech synthesis is already employed by some companies who produce AD for broadcast television. Similarly, AI is being used to create the description itself. I believe that the appropriate voicing of AD is done with nuance, attention to the images on screen, and an understanding of the phrasing used in the writing of the description. Indeed, in 2021, the American Council of the Blind passed a resolution noting its “full support for … the use of human voices in the voicing of audio description for cinema and narrative video or streaming.”  https://www.acb.org/2021-resolutions#Resolution2122

Can the spread of AI/speech synthesis or the use of AI to write audio description be stopped or forestalled? Should it be? This presentation will demonstrate how and why trained human audio describers are used to provide high-quality audio description–its voicing and its writing–for media content.

AI apps are inevitable and will surely bring great advances to humanity. But—at least for the foreseeable future—experienced *human* talent is key to effective AD.