Teslas Robotaxi - Meh with added accessibility issues

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So Tesla held what I think was meant to be a big reveal for their <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/10/24265530/tesla-robotaxi-elon-musk-features-range-price-release-date">new Robotaxi project</a>.As was usual for these things, it was big on hype and incredibly short on any sort of detail.What, for me, was especially lacking was any word on accessibility.The newly revealed Tesla Robotaxi is a two door Tesla with a trunk. Sleek and beige, it has gull wing doors and a headlight ripped straight from the CyberTruck (though thankfully that's all that seems to be CyberTruck inspired, this one appears to actually have a protective coating).<img class="image_resized" style="width:55.44%;" src="/uploads/Screenshot_20241012_112854_00709fe2ec.png" alt="Screenshot_20241012_112854.png" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_Screenshot_20241012_112854_00709fe2ec.png 227w, /uploads/small_Screenshot_20241012_112854_00709fe2ec.png 500w, /uploads/medium_Screenshot_20241012_112854_00709fe2ec.png 750w, /uploads/large_Screenshot_20241012_112854_00709fe2ec.png 1000w" sizes="100vw" width="1000">Image from the Verge article I linked above Copyright themWhat it doesn't have is a way for a wheelchair user to transfer into the vehicle AND THEN GET THEIR WHEELCHAIR IN. So the door shuts, the vehicle drives off then delivers their passenger at the other end to no chair. Hell from the picture above, there isn't anywhere for a wheelchair user to store their chair in the cabin for those who are able to disassemble and store their chair manually.Autonomous vehicles have many challenges to overcome. It seems basic accessibility is one of them.

Robocabs and Wheelchairs, Natures Enemies?

Where I examine the intersection between technology and disability. The good, the bad and some of the very bad.

Tech and Disability

Angry Beanie - Robocabs and Wheelchairs, Natures Enemies?

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In which I talk about the production that is Going Out

Wasn’t sure whether to put this in the Tech and Disability feed or just the general feed, eh I'll put it in both (footpaths count as technology don't they?).I was reading this blog post by the inestimable El Gibbs about the Cost of Exclusion [<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bluntshovels.au/the-cost-of-exclusion/">https://www.bluntshovels.au/the-cost-of-exclusion/</a>] and it helped to concentrate a cloud of thoughts I’ve had circling in my head for a while now.I rarely blog about what it’s like to be an incomplete paraplegic for a couple of reasons, it’s still pretty raw, even six years afterwards. Secondly I’ve still got a lot of “don’t complain, other people have it worse than you” going around my head.Anyway.It’s true what they say you know, you never really miss something until it’s gone. Things like the ability to just stand up and walk to the fridge, being able to kneel down to get a great photo, that sort thing. Lately however, for me, it’s the ability to just nip down the street to do something spontaneous just because.Now don’t get me wrong, I am extraordinarily lucky. I have access to the NDIS for support services, I have a power chair* (I’ll be blogging about this later) that allows me to tootle around the neighbourhood on my own and get out of my own head a bit. I’m also lucky in that my neighbourhood is a recently built estate with decent curb cuts and footpaths.The problems start when I need to travel further a field. Which I have to do if I want to do anything more interesting than taking photos of the same places I’ve taken photos hundreds of times before.Look I’m just speaking for me, but part of why I don’t go out more and have become something of a hermit is because it’s a whole Production. You need to plan things, what equipment you’re bringing, how long you’re going to be out, whether you think you’re going to need a toilet while you’re out, all that sort of thing.<ul><li>A simple trip to the doctors (ten minutes down the road by car) means doing the following:</li><li>My wife takes my wheelchair to the van to hoick it into the back after disassembling it</li><li>I use my walker to shuffle down the ramp in the garage out to the van (I’m trying to do as much walking as possible)</li><li>Sit in the van while my wife has to return the walker to the garage</li><li>My wife drives me to the doctors surgery. Thankfully they have a disabled spot open so we park</li><li>Wife gets the wheelchair out of the back of the van and re-assembles it</li><li>She brings it to my door, I transfer from the van to the chair</li><li>I wheel up ramp to the doctors surgery</li><li>I wheel into the doctors surgery, wait, see the doctor and then leave</li><li>I wheel down the ramp to the van</li><li>I transfer into the van and my wife takes the wheelchair apart and puts it into the back of the van</li><li>We drive home, I use the walker to walk up the ramp into the house and into my lifter chair</li><li>My wife re-assembles the wheelchair and brings it into the house</li></ul>And that’s just a trip ten minutes down the road to a single relatively accessible location.It gets even better* if you’re trying to pedestrian it about town. Then you’ve got to deal with footpaths.Footpaths done right are amazing things, flat and wide is good, shallow curb cuts allow for smooth transitioning from the footpath to the road and back.Footpaths done wrong are a nightmare than can injure you or break your chair if you’re not careful.Here’s an example.Every footpath has a camber, that is a slope to allow for water drainage. When you’re walking along, there’s a fair chance that you won’t really notice anything unless the camber becomes quite severe. However when you’re in a wheelchair, it’s a whole different ball game. Physics doesn’t like you. Because physics says that the wheelchair, without intervention by you, the person IN the chair (or the person pushing you), is going to want follow that slope (thanks gravity). So now you, (or the person pushing you) have to constantly correct and fight your chair to make sure that you’re going forward and not getting pitched onto the road.Oh and when you’re doing that fighting and adjusting, you’re most likely doing it with ONLY one arm/shoulder because you are having to apply the force on one side of the chair or you spin and go into a heap.Hello bursitis, torn shoulder muscles and having reduced capacity to do the things you CAN do by yourself until you heal up. And that’s if you DON’T end up on the road playing Australias Next Top Speed Bump.That’s not even talking about broken footpaths, people parking on footpaths, curb cuts that tip your chair or in the event that you try and take public transport, a bus that deposits you into grass because someone “forgot” that bus stops need to be accessible (read concrete AND connected to the footpath).I’ve experienced all of the above and more.When you’re faced with all that, then it honestly becomes easier to stay at home because the world outside seems to be designed to make it as hard as possible for you to participate. I have to push myself to get out of the house at all sometimes, and a large part of that is the mental weight of knowing that any trip is going to be a Production, one thats part scripted and part improv.

On Exclusion and Going Out

If you're going to build a project to help disabled people, please talk to disabled people

<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://rexasi-pro.spindoxlabs.com/">https://rexasi-pro.spindoxlabs.com/</a>What is it:It’s a project that ostensibly wants to develop a “Swarm AI Navigation/Self Driving” system for power wheelchairs.This would involve not only an onboard system of sensors and computers to drive the chair, but a pair of small drones to continually scan the area around the chair enabling what they call “Collaborative Navigation”, that is using the data from the chair and the drones to give the system the most up to date information of the situation around the chair so it can plot the best way forward.So I’m kind of in two minds here.Firstly the tech geek “ooh shiny” part of me really wants to see the setup. It sounds like an awesome project to get involved with and would involve all sorts of cool tech and problems to solve.Secondly the powerchair user part of me really, really wants to know if they actually spoke to a wheelchair user before coming up with the idea.Look, I’m coming at this from my own experience in using powered and manual chairs, I’m not purporting to speak for anyone else but myself.Operating a wheelchair while out and about can be an exercise in extreme frustration and operating in crowded environments can be even more so. However by and large the challenge is more about dealing with the large chaotic system that is the human mob. Not only are you on the look out for any obstacles or accessibility issues, but you’re dealing with a herd of people that:<ul><li>By and large have trouble avoiding bumping into other people, let alone a large wheeled object</li><li>Can at any single point change direction because they saw something or someone they want to check on, and oh isn’t that necklace lovely, ouch something just ran over my foot.</li></ul>Throw in the fact that you don’t have visibility over the crowd (ye gods I miss that, I’m 194cm tall, I used to be able to see for miles in crowds, sigh) and you’re basically hoping like hell that you’re not going to injure someone.Hrmm looking at that I can see where the idea for the project came from (and why it triggers my inner geek).To be honest the biggest problem for me in this project isn’t the AI Assisted driving bit (though I don’t trust it in a car, and I’m really going to struggle trusting it in my wheelchair), no, it’s the drones. While having two scout drones scooting about the place doing lidar scans to map the room you’re in sounds cool, in reality what you have is two really noisy devices flying around peoples heads at a time when no one is really watching where they’re going.Someone is going to cop a drone to the head.It’s just not practical, and any wheelchair user would have been able to tell them that from the start.We see this time and again, where a tech project is started with the stated goal of assisting people with disabilities, but they don’t actually involve anyone with a disability in planning or developing the projects.Who knows, I may be completely wrong, and in twenty years, I’ll be flying down the footpath with my own cloud of microdrones constantly scanning the world around me, but somehow I don’t think so.

Drones and chairs and AI oh my

Just two examples of People with Disabilities taking control and sharing information that can really help each other

Part of the fun that is needing a mobility aid (be it a wheelchair or walking frame or even just a stick) is the lottery you play when you leave the house to go to an event, or even just to the shops. That lottery is called “Will I be able to get into the place I intend to visit or am I going to be stuck spinning my wheels outside?”Information about how accessible a venue is can be hard to find, if not downright impossible.However, hope is not lost, this being the age of the internet, groups are working together to crowd source accessibility information and make it available to all who need it.Here’s a couple of examples<h2>Roll Mobility</h2><img class="image_resized" style="width:30.03%;" src="/uploads/Screenshot_20250420_144409_751497ade8.png" alt="A screen shot from the Roll Mobility app. It's display a map of the Sutherland area. There are a mix of green, orange and red markers, each signifying a location and how accessible it is" srcset="uploads/thumbnail_Screenshot_20250420_144409_751497ade8.png 72w,/uploads/small_Screenshot_20250420_144409_751497ade8.png 500w,/uploads/medium_Screenshot_20250420_144409_751497ade8.png 750w,/uploads/large_Screenshot_20250420_144409_751497ade8.png 1000w," sizes="100vw" width="1000px">Roll Mobility is an app that has been developed by a group of people (both abled and disabled) in the US. It’s available for both Apple and Android and allows users to create listings for places they visit.For each listing you’re asked a series of questions about the Venue and Restroom (if any), and of course any general comments you have.Depending on how you answer the questions, the venue and restroom listings are then given a star rating.You can also add photos.At the moment the app mostly has data for the US, however there is nothing stopping people from around the world contributing (I’ve already started) and making a global effort.Available:Google: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rollappinc.mobilityapp&amp;pli=1">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rollappinc.mobilityapp&amp;pli=1</a>Apple: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/roll-mobility/id1535814561">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/roll-mobility/id1535814561</a><h2>Wheelmap.org</h2><img class="image_resized" style="width:30.05%;" src="/uploads/Screenshot_20250420_143107_70c7280c50.png" alt="A screen shot from the Wheelmap App. It shows the legend for how to rate a location. Green means fully accessible, Orange partially accessibl and Red not accessible" srcset="/uploads/thumbnail_Screenshot_20250420_143107_70c7280c50.png 72w,/uploads/small_Screenshot_20250420_143107_70c7280c50.png 500w,/uploads/medium_Screenshot_20250420_143107_70c7280c50.png 750w,/uploads/large_Screenshot_20250420_143107_70c7280c50.png 1000w," sizes="100vw" width="1000px">Wheelmap.org was started 15 years ago in Germany by a group called Sozial Helden (Social Heroes in English).It’s similar to Roll Mobility in that the goal is to crowd source information from people with disabilities as to how accessible locations are. A user can either use the website, or the Android or iPhone app to indicate how accessible a location is using a Traffic Light system.<ul><li>Green means fully wheelchair accessible</li><li>Orange, partially accessible</li><li>Red, not accessible by a wheelchair</li></ul>Again, there’s not a lot of Australian data at the moment, but each journey begins with a single push.Available:Web: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://wheelmap.org/">https://wheelmap.org/</a>Google: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wheelmap.android.online">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wheelmap.android.online</a>Apple: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id399239476?pt=422407&amp;ct=Wheelmap-Blog&amp;mt=8">https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id399239476?pt=422407&amp;ct=Wheelmap-Blog&amp;mt=8</a>These are just two of the many projects out there trying to fill a gap and make things easier for people with mobility issues. It doesn’t take much to contribute to the efforts of each group either. In just under a minute, you can share information that will make the next visit by someone with mobility issues a little easier.

Crowd sourcing accessibility information

AI and Machine Learning interact with disability in countless ways.

What effect is AI going to have on Disability?That’s an excellent question and the answer is really simple. It’s going to be absolutely terrible.Oh or is it going to enable People With Disabilities to live fuller lives and regain lost abilities?Or is it both?Yessss?Look, this is going to get a bit nit picky but I think it’s going to be important to work out exactly what we mean by AI when we’re talking about how it’s going to affect People With Disabilities.For instance when we’re talking about how services like ChatGPT we’re actually talking about a specific type of AI called Large Language Models (LLMs). These are built by ingesting data from all over the web and then assigning values to both the data and the relationships that the data has with other data. This produces a statistical model that allows the LLM to present as if it “understands” the relationships and can thus be queried using every day language and respond in kind.On the other hand if we’re talking about the models being used to say detect cancer in MRI imaging, then we’re still talking about what’s called Machine Learning, but the data here is hundreds of thousands of medical images that have been tagged with “yes this shows cancer” or “no this doesn’t show” cancer. The system then uses this information to determine if a new image shows the signs of cancer (based on what it’s learned from its data set) or not. [<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://neurosciencenews.com/ai-mri-neurology-27870/">https://neurosciencenews.com/ai-mri-neurology-27870/</a>]Or even models that learn what brain signals mean what and then replicate that to drive prosthetics [<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68368439">https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-68368439</a>]Then you have other forms of AI, like say Voice Synthesis. The data here is literally a persons voice. We feed hours of that persons voice into a set of algorithms and out the other comes a copy of that voice. That voice can then be used by someone who doesn’t have one. [<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c789lnpd59eo">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c789lnpd59eo</a>]Or maybe we’re talking about AI systems that are being used to filter job applicants. Systems that have been proven to contain biases against People With Disabilities [<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.disabilitysupportguide.com.au/talking-disability/chatgpt-shown-to-overlook-job-applicants-with-disability">https://www.disabilitysupportguide.com.au/talking-disability/chatgpt-shown-to-overlook-job-applicants-with-disability</a>]As with all things, AI and Disability is a spectrum. At one end you’re going to get truly horrendous cases, systems that punish and disadvantage People With Disabilities, but at the other you’ll find systems that actually work to give People With Disabilities a new lease on life, either directly or indirectly.We need to explore this properly, both the good and the bad.

Is AI Bad For PWD? It Depends

If it's too broken for ME to see it properly, it's soooo not accessible

So I was browsing through Linkedin (I know, it’s a terrible habit) when I came across a post about an LLM that I wanted to have a look at (hush).So I clicked on the link and was taken to a page that was very flashy. On the surface of it, there was nothing to write home about design wise. It was more brochure ware than anything else, with all of the deep dive goodness contained in links off to their github and huggingface repos. All well and good.Except I couldn’t find my mouse pointer.Now I wear glasses but I’m not vision impaired beyond things being fuzzy on the screen and getting headaches if I don’t wear them for too long. I also have a big screen and yes sometimes I lose the pointer if the screen is particularly busy, but not this time.No this time I couldn’t find the pointer because whoever had designed the site decided that what it really needed was a custom pointer. Not only a custom pointer, but a custom pointer that blended into the majority background of the site.I’ve posted a screen shot in the feature image of this post, if you can’t find the pointer I’ve put a description into the image alt text and I’ve enlarged the actual pointer below<img class="image_resized" style="width:15.56%;" src="/uploads/fancypointer_e1ee1cbf4c.png" alt="An enlarged photo of the custom pointer in the featured image. There is a white background. The custom pointer itself is a large rounded square with a much smaller rounded square attached to the larger squares lower right corner. Both squares are white. Around the pointer is a faint fuzzy black border." srcset="/uploads/small_fancypointer_e1ee1cbf4c.png 500w, /uploads/medium_fancypointer_e1ee1cbf4c.png 750w, /uploads/large_fancypointer_e1ee1cbf4c.png 1000w" sizes="100vw" width="1000">As you can see, it’s very fancy, and very hard to see.I’m going to contact the site owners, but can we please make sure that if we go fancy, that it’s accessible fancy?

Robocabs and Wheelchairs, Natures Enemies?

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