What risks do recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and generative artificial intelligence (GAI) pose for people with disabilities? And what opportunities might they offer for improving accessibility? For some time now, CREATE researchers have been exploring these pressing questions. We are excited to announce that CREATE has been awarded a five-year, $4.6 million grant to advance this crucial research!
CREATE will be leading a Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on participatory, assistive, inclusive, and responsible use of AI technology, funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), a program of the Administration for Community Living, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The interdisciplinary team of researchers involved with this RERC come from the College of Engineering, the Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, the Information School, Disability Studies, and Rehabilitation Medicine. Aligning with CREATE’s mission and vision, the CREATE-RERC projects will be guided, informed, and led by people with disabilities, toward the goal of creating accessible technologies.
Research projects
The CREATE-RERC research projects investigate bias, privacy, and security risks when GAI is used in assistive technology contexts and for accessibility, and they explore possibilities for addressing these risks. Both projects focus on multiply-marginalized people with disabilities. One research project collects the first-ever dataset about GAI’s inclusiveness and privacy and security risks. The other research project investigates the indirect risks for multiply-marginalized people with disabilities when GAI is used “on” them i.e., to rank their resumes. The project also explores methods that will allow people with disabilities to mitigate these risks.
Development projects
The development projects of the CREATE-RERC seek to place people with disabilities as full participants in the design of responsible AI and GAI. First, we will develop disability-led solutions for one of the biggest unmet needs in accessibility today: text simplification. Simply put, most documents are not accessible to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and current text-simplification efforts rely on the availability of people with text simplification expertise to check and validate the outputs.
“This award recognizes the research excellence that has defined CREATE since its inception four years ago. All members of our CREATE community—researchers, students, community partners, and industry partners—have contributed to putting CREATE at the front and center of efforts to advance accessible technologies. We are honored that NIDILRR has awarded CREATE, and by implication our community, the funding that supports our work ensuring that emerging technologies are accessible for everyone.”
Dr. Jennifer Mankoff, Director of CREATE and the Richard E. Ladner Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering
Our first development project aims for on-demand, self-directed text simplification that can also allow for independent fact checking and validation. Second, we incorporate AI to improve the accessibility of the creativity tool crucial in white-collar work, slideshow creation. Our third development project allows people with disabilities to generate multiple fabricated variations on proven solutions for home adaptation. The fourth project collects open-source accessibility supports at a hub that is easy for the disability community to find and that is accessible to use, at a11yhood.org.
Read about recent accomplishments in our Annual Impact Report.
Collaborators
PI: Jennifer Mankoff, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering (College of Engineering)
Co-PI: Mark Harniss, Associate Professor, Rehabilitation Medicine (UW Medicine)
Other team members: Anat Caspi, Director of the Taskar Center (Allen School, College of Engineering), Jacob O. Wobbrock (Information School), Olivia Banner (CREATE Operations, Disability Studies Program), Joshua Miele (Amazon Lab126 Accessibility Research), Tony Fast (Distinguished Project Jupyter Contributor), Kathleen Voss (CREATE Community Engagement and Partnerships), Liz Diether-Martin (CREATE Digital Communications)