I frequently see people asking, even demanding, that AI-generated Alt Text stop. If those folks clearly have usable vision, I block them and move on – life’s too short for preachy whining from people who don’t rely on Alt Text.
But when it’s a blind person saying this, I’m surprised. As a blind person myself, I know that 99% of the images I encounter online lack any description. Now, with a suite of AI tools, I can finally generate accessible, usable image descriptions. Are they perfect? No. Computer vision isn’t sight, but it’s made staggering progress – beyond what I ever expected. And if I need more clarity, I can always consult a human through these same tools.
Blind people slamming AI-generated Alt Text isn’t helping. We need these systems to improve, not disappear. The reality is, expecting every image to have a human-created description is unrealistic. Let’s push for better technology, not bash what’s already making a difference.
@Lottie I think it would be great if sighted people, like me, use it to generate the "first pass" so I can review it and edit it for accuracy, if needed. That is less effort than creating from scratch, and is a happy medium.
Which tools do you use yourself?
@zoltandulac I use Be My Eyes and Aira access AI. I also use OPI and anthropic‘s models directly. Oh, and mistral as well. Sorry for dictation!
@zoltandulac @Lottie This is the second time I saw this topic in less than a week (the first was in Bluesky). I can't believe it's an issue. I for one find "AI" generated alt text useful. If I'm not mistaken, the #Spoutible community implemeted it in 1Q of 2024, including creating a summary for threaded posts.
And as mentioned, it's a good first pass.
Now I'm curious, how did this anti-AI alt text started? Who complained about it? What was it they're whining about?
Simply hating technology just because "AI" without understanding how it is used or can be useful, in this case #a11y , is just whining and noise. "Alt text" text don't even qualify under Copyright laws anywhere, so I can't understand why there are people complaining about it being used for alt text.
What did I miss?
@youronlyone I saw someone post on Bluesky about how the AI generated captions are crap and really unhelpful, was that the same post? I haven't personally seen any of those captions.
@qui_oui @youronlyone I would say may auto-captioning software (like YouTube) are not good. There are ones that are good, like Whisper. However, I would always suggest that people who create videos who use them to create captions for their videos review the captions for accuracy, since hallucinations do happen. I always do this for all videos I caption.
@qui_oui @youronlyone For blind users, using these tools on inaccessible content is way better than nothing. Some are better than others. I think many blind users are aware of their limitations, but I'll leave it to them comment on that. 
@qui_oui @youronlyone Subtitling videos to translate non-English dialog into English are anothe area where Whisper shines... but I always get someone to review. I made a humorous video about this when I subtitled a great Bengladeshi film into English if you are interested.
https://archive.org/details/machine-man-2009-ai-translation-reaction-video
@qui_oui I think different, or it branched out. At least for the one I saw, it was about "alt text" too.
@youronlyone Sorry, I meant alt-text. Wrong terminology.
@qui_oui Ah. More likely the same!
I'm wondering how it started, and in two differeet networks at that, on different days.
Do people these days just want to be anti-AI because it's trending? 
@youronlyone I think this is because that they can generate mistakes and/or that AIs can hallucinate. I am a web developer focused on accessibility. When I use AI to author alt text for web pages, I always review for accuracy. I am not blind, so I can do that to ensure the alt text I generate is accurate. Same for captions and subtitles in videos.
@zoltandulac It's understandable if version a platform or app is using is not that great. But to lump all tools as poor and campaign how those are bad for alt texts, is overboard. I mean, it's just a tool, and a tool can be improved. In addition, those who can read can check and adjust if necessary. If they're not, then it's a user problem not a tool problem.
I'm not defending these tools, but they can help, we just need to learn how to use them. Again, like in Spoutible, they're doing just fine with it.
I don't know, it's just odd to see there's a growing(?) voice against the use of these tools for alt texts. It seems like people just want to be anti-AI or something because it's the trend. *sigh*
@youronlyone I think the reason why is that the majority of people who create websites have not putting alt text in since began, and as a result, blind users have to rely on tools that vary in accuracy and is prone to hallucinations. If I were blind, the inequity would make me upset.
Bottom line: web site creators should ensure there is accurate alt text on their web work. The should use AI to help them do it and edit accordingly instead of having blind users guess.