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c/ai-innovations•mark731mark731•1mo ago

That 5 minute chat with a stranger at the laundromat changed how I think about AI assistants

Some older guy saw me using voice to text and said he uses AI to write letters to his grandkids because his hands shake too bad. I never thought about accessibility as a main use case, just a bonus. Has anyone else had a random conversation that made you see AI differently?
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rileyjones
rileyjones1mo ago
Read a study once that said disabled people were the original power users of text to speech and predictive text way before it went mainstream. The guy at the laundromat probably saved hundreds of hours of frustration just by talking to his phone. We tend to frame this stuff as convenience but it's really about dignity for a lot of folks.
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laura_ross
laura_ross1mo ago
Wait, people actually use predictive text before it was cool?
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olivia_webb
Saved hundreds of hours of frustration" - or just saved him from having to explain why his handwriting looks like a doctor's prescription. Guess that's what we call "dignity through technology" now.
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