Revolutionizing Assistance: New NASCIO Publication with Kalea Young-Gibson

Bonus episode! Amy and Alex interrupt our regular summer series programming to announce a new NASCIO publication: Revolutionizing Assistance: How States Can Improve Generative AI’s Role in Disability Empowerment. Author and NASCIO policy analyst Kalea-Young Gibson joins us to talk about the publication and the recommendation she thinks is most critical.

Transcript

Episode 123 AI and Accessibility

Amy Glasscock: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to NASCIO Voices, where we talk all things state IT. I'm Amy Glasscock in Lexington, Kentucky. 

Alex Whitaker: And I'm Alex Whitaker in Washington, DC. Today we're taking a quick detour from our summer series programming to announce our newest publication, Revolutionizing Assistance, how states can improve generative AI's role in disability empowerment.

Amy Glasscock: To tell us all about it, we're bringing back NASCIO's policy analyst and publication author, Kalea Young-Gibson. Kalea, welcome back to NASCIO Voices and thanks for joining us today. 

Kalea Young-Gibson: Hello, glad to be back. Thank you both for having me again. 

Alex Whitaker: Hey, Kalea. So always good to have you. Um, so this new short but mighty report, Revolutionizing Assistance is out today.

This is your first NASCIO publication. Tell us what led you to the idea of writing about how generative AI and accessibility can work together. 

Kalea Young-Gibson: Yeah. So the idea for revolutionizing assistance, it actually came from NASCIO's Midyear [00:01:00] conference this past April. Um, I don't necessarily remember where or when, but I do remember having this light bulb moment and just seeing, Scribbling in all caps with a bunch of stars, "GenAI and accessibility" in my notebook.

So once I had a minute to sit down and kind of sift through that, I mean, it ended up being pages and pages of ideas. I landed on Gen AI and accessibility as my first publication, because it's very timely, it's relevant, it's important. And at the end of the day, the very nature of technology is to increase and expand access to the world in a way that best fits the person using it, right?

So I wanted to learn more about how Gen AI specifically can do this for people with disabilities and help others learn about it in the same way. 

Amy Glasscock: Awesome. So tell us kind of generally what the report is about. Is it all about how great Gen AI is in improving accessibility or how it's causing more problems than we had before or somewhere in the middle?

Kalea Young-Gibson: I would say somewhere in the middle. Generally speaking, this publication does provide a brief overview of how Gen AI is already being leveraged,, and the [00:02:00] improvements that people have seen in their lives, , people with unseen and seen disabilities specifically. And it also takes a look at the limitations of some of these use cases.

Using those limitations to identify where improvements can be made. It closes out with four key recommendations to kind of guide state technology leaders through these limitations more smoothly so everyone gets maximum benefit from their chosen Gen AI platforms. 

Alex Whitaker: That's really cool. Were you surprised about anything you found in your research?

Kalea Young-Gibson: Yeah. So, and I ended up not including this in the paper for brevity. Um, it easily could have been 20 pages and not the 40, but I was most surprised to learn that a lot of current gen AI and accessibility efforts were actually inspired by and modeled after practices in other fields. For example, speech-generating devices that incorporate basic AI principles have been widely used by speech language pathologists for more than a decade now.

They're primarily used when they work with people who have [00:03:00] disabilities related to verbal communication. Now you can download these speech generating devices as apps or get an actual physical device and both options are fully customizable for the user. These existing practices provide great models for state technology leaders, especially who want to leverage gen AI in the same way, but for different purposes like improving digital citizen services and increasing workforce efficiency.

Amy Glasscock: That's awesome. 

Alex Whitaker: That's great, yeah. 

Amy Glasscock: So, I know you mentioned that we have some recommendations in the report for states, for technology leaders. What are some of the recommendations in the report? 

Kalea Young-Gibson: Yeah, so again, there are four key recommendations in the report, but what I believe is the most impactful or the most important one is to not only remember, especially in this case, that people with disabilities, both seen and unseen, are an important stakeholder group.

When we're looking at Gen AI and accessibility. So not only to remember that, but to actively engage this stakeholder group in any and every way you [00:04:00] can, just like you would any other group. And this active engagement, it also includes ensuring people with disabilities are accurately represented in datasets that are ultimately used to build out these AI models and specify what they'll be used for, which is another key recommendation that you'll find in this report as well.

Amy Glasscock: So important. Absolutely. 

Alex Whitaker: Yeah, it's great. And it's so cool that we're doing this now with AI as opposed to maybe how some technology has evolved in the past without asking these questions. So I think it's so great, Kalea. 

Kalea Young-Gibson: Yeah, most definitely. Thank you. 

Alex Whitaker: Yeah, of course. Well, I cannot believe we're gonna let you get out of here without a lightning round.

But as this is the summer, I think we'll just have to do it this time. But thanks so much for the overview. Really great to hear about. I mean, I'm sure our listeners are eager to read it, and they can find it in the NASCIO Resource Center at nascio.org. As always, all of our publications are free to download for everyone.

Thanks again, Kalea. 

Kalea Young-Gibson: Thank you both. 

Amy Glasscock: Thanks. Thanks again for listening to NASCIO Voices. NASCIO Voices is a production of the National Association of State Chief Information [00:05:00] Officers or NASCIO. Learn more and check out our new publication at NASCIO. org. 

Alex Whitaker: And we'll be back tomorrow with our summer series regular schedule.

Talk with you then.