The way a lot of you talk about AI is ableist. For this to be true, it doesn’t matter if AI is actually useful to disabled people or if disabled people want to use it. The same way that discussing fictional races in media can be racist, discussing AI can be ableist regardless of its actual real-world uses.
I wanted to put that in the first paragraph, because so many discussions of this get derailed by further ableist gotchas about “alternatives to AI” or inspiration porn about disabled people who don’t use AI. AI could be literally useless for disabled people and yet the way you discuss it can still be ableist and use ableist rhetoric.
So many of you posit AI as something that is used by “stupid,” “lazy,” “illiterate” people who have “rotten brains.” Do I even have to point out why this is ableist? “I have no sympathy for people who are too stupid and lazy to write their own emails because their brain has turned entirely to mush” Do I really need to point it out?
Tying a person’s worth to their intellect, their productivity, their work ethic, or the output they can produce is deeply, deeply ableist.
Imagine an intellectually disabled person who cannot write emails. Maybe they cannot write at all, maybe they only need help with formal emails. Maybe they get this help from a friend, a carer, a tool, or a template. Or maybe they do not get help and therefore their email remains forever unwritten. Do you hate this person? Do you think this person is contemptible and deserves to be shunned?
“Well, that’s still no excuse to use gen AI! They should have used a template or an online guide!” This post is not about actual gen AI. This post is about how you talk about and criticize it. If your issue isn’t with people unable to write emails, then why do you keep pulling them into this? If your issue is with gen AI users, say so directly. Or better yet, spell out the specific grievance you have.
Of course, the email is not always literal. It can be a stand-in for a “simple” task that is required for many jobs and everyday situations. However, the same applies across situations. You shouldn’t judge people on their intellect, productivity, or their ability to perform paid labor. That is always ableist.
If your actual real problem with generative AI is that people are unable to perform certain tasks? Ableism. But if your problem is something else? Talk about it
You can talk about the dangers of using AI in hiring and sentencing, how it reproduces societal biases and is completely unsuited to these tasks, the inclusion of AI in workflows which are not improved by AI, Google giving you faulty AI “summaries”, environmental impacts of modern digital infrastructure (which includes AI, but is not exclusive to it), deceptive marketing which makes people believe that AI is a type of search engine, resulting in people believing in dangerous misinformation, the use of AI and AI-powered bots for spreading political misinformation, job loss through automation, etc. all without employing ableist narratives about intellect, laziness, and productivity
