Human Thinking: AI’s Eyes, Ears, and Voice for an Unstandardized Human

Human Thinking…
^{_{Return to the top of the page.}}
AI’s Eyes, Ears, and Voice for an Unstandardized Human 

"I recognize the look on people's faces when they struggle to understand what I've said," Aubrie Lee, a brand manager at Google whose speech is affected by muscular dystrophy, shared on Google's blog some years ago. While researching this essay, I came across the line. The words were part of an announcement for a Google tool designed to help people with non-standard speech.

I wondered if machines could help people connect and communicate. Can technologies de-standrise communication and our connectedness, turning what was once impossible into reality?

Our world has been designed for a standardized human for generations, unintentionally sidelining countless brilliant minds. According to a UNICEF report, nearly 240 million children with disabilities face numerous barriers, with about half never having the opportunity to attend school. Today, technology and AI are dismantling these barriers, one line of code at a time. This effort isn't about fixing people but changing the world's inability to recognize and include them.

AI to Empathize, Not Standardize

The promise of AI is not about creating one-size-fits-all solutions, but tools that become one-size-fits-one, adapting to the individual to unlock their full potential. This spirit of empowerment has been growing for years, long before the recent hype around generative AI, driven by a deep understanding of human needs.

The principle behind Microsoft's Seeing AI, developed by Saqib Shaikh, a blind engineer, focuses on creating a tool that meets the needs of visually impaired users. This app utilizes a phone's camera to narrate the world around the user, helping them read restaurant menus and describe the expressions on friends' faces. Rather than attempting to "fix" blindness, it offers a new way to experience the environment.
Google's Project Relate is designed to help individuals with speech difficulties. The app learns a user's unique way of speaking. Instead of simply rejecting what it interprets as an "error," the AI encourages the user to teach it, resulting in a personalized model that can better understand their speech.

Creativity can also be freed from physical limitations. Sarah Ezekiel, an internationally recognized artist diagnosed with motor neurone disease, lost the use of her hands but not her imagination. Today, she uses her eye as a paintbrush. With the help of an eye-gaze computer, she controls every stroke with her gaze, producing celebrated works of art. The AI is not the artist; it liberates the artist who has always existed within her.

Investment Attention

Despite significant successes, a concerning shift is happening. Despite the promise of such tools, investment attention skews toward consumer-facing AI for mass-market appeal, while bespoke, human-centred applications struggle to secure comparable resources.

Gathering special types of data, like unusual speech sounds or muscle signals, is being overlooked because of the focus on big models trained on general internet data. While these models are powerful, they risk creating a one-size-fits-all approach, potentially leaving behind many people who need real-life solutions.
The initial spirit of empowerment now struggles to remain relevant in an industry increasingly focused on scale rather than personalized solutions.

This disparity highlights an uncomfortable truth about our priorities or the industry’s priorities. We are channelling billions into creating more sophisticated chatbots, while the tools that could restore dignity, independence, and opportunities for millions remain chronically underfunded.
Artificial intelligence is not a force of nature; it is clay in our hands, and we choose to shape it in the way it serves us.

The Bigger Picture: Standardising The Human

Most tech that dominates the market does not solve real problems. It manufactures them, creates the illusion of need, hooks users, and then scales that dependency into profit. Take Deepfakes as an example. What problems does it solve?
Deepfakes are no longer just a curiosity. They are a business attracting serious money. Investors have poured hundreds of millions into detection technologies, with single deals ranging from $16 million to over $100 million. The larger industry, covering both creation and detection, is valued in the billions today and is projected to climb into the tens of billions by the early 2030s.

The origins were almost casual. Deepfakes appeared because they could, not because anyone asked for them. They follow a script even as entertainment: the same kinds of jokes, the same flicker of unease, the same predictable strangeness. Even the fear of being deceived feels standardised. What began as a technical experiment has now grown into a societal problem. There was once talk of using deepfakes for accessibility, to give those who lack one a voice or presence. That promise is rarely examined and seldom delivered.

Accessibility tools focus on removing real barriers rather than creating endless upgrades. They aim to eliminate obstacles that may no longer be needed. Because of this, they often don't become widely popular or attract huge investments. They are designed to end exclusion, not to boost growth. In a market that values size, solving a problem so well that it disappears is seen as bad business.

We had a great invention, a discovery. But discovery is not an endpoint; it's a catalyst for progress. This discovery or creation of AI should be the clay in our hands, helping us solve real-world problems.
This is not a story about disability or gadgets. The goal of innovation is not how many people are feeding AI with their data or paying to subscribe to the product, but how much of their potential can remain beautifully, usefully unstandardised.

AI Mishears and Misunderstands, again 

Of course, this journey comes with challenges. An AI is only as fair as the data it learns from. Research indicates that speech recognition systems make nearly twice as many errors when transcribing the speech of Black individuals compared to white individuals. According to the Stanford Report, one study found an average word error rate of 35% for Black speakers versus 19% for white speakers. 

Nothing is a fairy tale here, and the world still needs more ways to connect, not only in certain parts of the world, the West, but everywhere and in every language. This piece reminds us of what is possible through technology and where we need to focus our efforts.

The same spirit of ingenuity is addressing the digital divide. In Kenya, engineer Roy Allela was inspired by his deaf niece to create a device that translates sign language into audible speech. While this glove relies on a smartphone- a barrier for the 2.6 billion people still offline- its brilliance lies in its inspiration. It is a testament to how human-centred innovation can light the way forward, creating solutions that inspire us to bridge the remaining gaps in access and infrastructure.

 A Future Engineered for Everyone

The evidence is positive. Studies confirm that AI demonstrably improves learning and motivation for students with disabilities. But is the world’s will is there to drive innovation into this direction?
AI is giving us the keys to unlock a more inclusive world. It is a powerful ally in our quest to ensure that every mind is seen, every voice is valued, and every person has the tools to share their unique brilliance with the world. 
^{_{Return to the top of the page.}}
Wafaa Albadry
Founder | AI.Human.Story
Journalist • Cyberpsychology Specialist • AI Strategist

AI Knowledge

Did you know? 

International crime rings use AI to automate "Pig Butchering" scams, a fraud that blends long-term romance with fake crypto investments. AI-powered scripts help scammers build deep trust over months, allowing them to manipulate victims into investing their life savings. A scammer uses AI to build and scale an emotional bond with several people on dating apps or social media, then introduces a "secret" crypto platform. They persuade the victim to invest heavily and then disappear with the funds.

💔 Why it matters

• Massive Financial Losses: The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) reports billions of pounds lost each year to investment scams, with pig butchering being a primary cause.

• AI-Powered Manipulation: Security researchers confirm these operations use AI-enhanced scripts for convincing, simultaneous conversations that create an authentic emotional connection.

• Industrial Scale Operations: This is not the work of a single scammer. Reports from the UN and companies like Sophos detail large-scale, organised crime networks, often staffed by victims of human trafficking, operating these scams around the clock.

• Exploits Emotional Vulnerability: The lengthy grooming process is designed to prey on loneliness, making the eventual financial betrayal even more devastating.

🐷 AI Pig Butchering = your heart 💔 and wallet 💰 are the targets.

Get involved

This Newsletter aims to be created by those who see the human signal in AI noise. We plan to publish reader submissions. 

We want your opinion and if you’ll share or repost your writing, academic paper, reflections, collaboration, or contribution.