How AI Can Help Boost Disability Inclusion - Ep. 238
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Hello and welcome to the NVIDIA A I podcast. I'm your host. No, a cabbies. A study released this past july of twenty twenty four by the special olympics global center for inclusion and education found sixty four percent of educators and seventy seven percent of parents of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities I D D, as they are known, view artificial intelligence as a potentially powerful mechanism to promote more inclusive classrooms and close educational gaps between students with and without I D D.

But only thirty five percent of educator surveyed believe that developers of A I currently account for the needs and priorities of students, with I D D, pointing to the need for the creation of more disability inclusive tools. More recently, the g seven held its first ever meeting on disability in umbria, italy, just a few weeks ago. We record this in october twenty twenty four.

The event aim to bring greater attention and action the disability issues globally with a major focus on a system, technology and A I. Our two guests today have been involved in working with A I and the potential of A I in special education for some time now, when then was involved with a survey I mentioned and the other LED, the U. S.

Delegation to the g seven meeting. And they hear to talk about the potential for using A I in special education and some of things we need to do to best to realize that potential ceremony. Carr is the special adviser on international disability rights at the U. S.

Department of state, special advisers in our leads, the united states comprehensive strategy to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities internationally and across our foreign policy and actives thy driver is the chairman of the board of special olympics, where, together with six million special olympic athletes, more than two hundred countries, he worked to promote health, education and a more unified world through the joy of sport. Sarah tim, thank you so much for making the time to join the video AI podcast. welcome.

喂喂， thank you.

So I covered only just the tip of the iceberg. G, of all the work that you both open doing through your careers and and your lives to further the cause of of folks with special educational needs, disabilities. But I only crashed the service in the intro, and i'd much rather the audience would much rather here from the both of you. So maybe we can start, uh, and sir, ask to go first to your mind, just tell us a little bit about what you do, what you work on, and then we can kind of roll into the whole A I technology parks. I just start with what you definitely.

So my team and I, we lead the U. S. Government, foreign, icy and disability.

What does that really be? You know, as we enter the form, policy conversation, dialogues for, we focus on global peace, security properties, or we focus on trade, economic development, A I, climate change, food and security, how do we ensure that disability is integrated mainstream? And part of those dialogues and conversations, my office recovered red the globe when IT comes to disability for policy, right? But the work is still very much, you know, there's so much.

So that is be done. How do we ensure that one society looks like this in policy is not seen from a different line, is not seen from a big line, but it's seen from a valley bashee. We include people disability into your economy.

It's onna help your G G D P seven. When you bring people disabilities into the system, society and innovation, we will be able to bring so much more innovation and benefit to the technology world. You cannot achieve full recovery reconstruction.

That's successive for everyone if you don't bring in the disability line. So our goal is we need to ensure that the civilities of the table, and that will never be able to reach full global piece of percent. Security .

engineers.

The special big movement is just over fifty years old. We were started in the in the thousand nine hundred and sixties when the norm for a person with an intellect, ability, lets say, someone with downs syndrome or a comfortable kind of chAllenge, the Normal have been an institutionalize ed light, often begun at birth and for their whole lives, relegated to living in a concrete are setting that often was included subhuman.

The reason I mention that is because the movement has, the world has changed a great deal in some ways for the Better, but the movement hasn't. Our movement has always been focused on how do we use the power of sport to heal these wounds, attitudes to these discriminatory attitudes to heal this sense in which cultures tell people with elections, developmental chAllenges, you don't matter, you don't belong, you can't get to. Our goal is, yeah, we play soccer.

We run track needs and all these kind of, but we also try to foot sports at the center of conversations in schools about how can Young people, three, four, five, six, seven year old, how can they learn together with their peers with electoral disable dies, learn how to play together. And all the sudden you started, learn how to learn together. And then I ultimately learn to live together.

So where in one hundred and ninety countries around the world, we do you in an average year, about thousand games a year at the community level, you know, single sport, turn, basketball games, bowling tournament, spring games, summer games, softball chAllenges, you name IT all over the world, villages, small towns, and in every one of them is an invitation to see the potential of a person with an intellectual disability to fit in. But equally, as Sarah has just pointed out, to have the culture, the community see that without including everyone, you're selling yourself short. You're actually hand ali zing a everyone by including anyone.

Agree more, sir, before we get started into talking about a the summit and kind of the larger role of A I education, could you would you like to talk a little bit about your own experience um as a woman is with a disability and how that kind of impacted both your entrepreneurs and public service work?

Yes, you know this ability is a big part of a force. My identity, my lived experience, I became blind when I was seven, and my sister also became blind, but he was seven years old. And because of two reasons, one, because of our laws and legislation of courses are country here in the U.

S. And because of my parents, who did not allow society expectations or lack their ability ever enter the home, because that narrative, when IT comes to disabilities, you can't, you can't, you can't. And that's a very common narrow when IT comes to disability.

Yeah, that my mom really pushed just to have ambition screen, then really taught us, let's work on breaking down barriers. We can, we should. And growing up by realized most with disability all over the world don't have the same privilege. And I shouldn't be a privilege, should be a reality, or don't have that. You know, that reality of being seen, being heard and being family and I think this is doing for me battle experience really that influence and um my trajectory I yes I was a man equal major underground by end up actually for organization working is like b and on to really work with youthful disability to to creating an empowering system for them to be integrated and seen important valued and that that LED to then my my company and then that LED in this world in government so ultimately my my entire life has really thanks for the fact that I had parents who really who really gave me the opportunity live my homework, my full identity and embracements the identity as as a blind person with with pride make .

such a difference, right? It's a lovely the parents we we wind up with but glad to hear years have been supporting you in all the best way. That sounds like .

one of the things I will talk up to people about is how do we partner up with spoke to break down barriers so people with disability can be fully integrated, rate IT almost like. And people will look at like, oh, we help people disabilities, no, not actually. We help society by breaking embarras people, disability can contribute and that becomes a benefit for everyone. And that's an important thing that we always start to talk about. Policies can help break down barriers, which that will allow our society to benefit from .

our I I appreciated to that point in kind of, uh, you are answered my opening question but tells about, you know, you are the work that you do that you framed that way from the beginning that look, there are all these people who your choosing to exclude, and if you would include them, your bottom lines gna go up like for starters, you know. And yeah, so let's talk about the role technology.

Let's talk about the potential and some of the potential pitfalls and how we kind of work around them to use knowledge to help we, we, we talk to Better an education. Way back in the day, I I tried my and classroom teaching, and I know first hand how hard classroom teachers work now, because you, because people I saw now, I found my other path. But the promise of technology education has been around for the longest technology and education, right? But with A I there's live talk about personalize learning, dynamic learning, all of these sorts of things. And when we talk about ai kind of large and generate AI, there's a lot of talk, especially more recently, which is great on bias, on things like what kind of data was the model trained on, where is the data coming from, who's a representative of who's not about all of these factors right nearing in on the world of I D D, special education, what are the benefits? What are some of the risks that are presented by A I for persons with disabilities I can .

judge in and maybe summarize, at least at a high level, what we are seeing in the special pick movement when we talk to people across the globe, whether it's the northern hemisphere, the southern hemisphere, different cultures. The first thing is that in schools, personalize instruction is fantastic tics, helpful for people with electrical nal disabilities. It's a game change.

One of the primary obstacles to inclusion is the absence of the teachers capacity to vote. The time for individualize instruction SHE, or he has a group of twenty or thirty or forty or fifty children. So A I can be a game changer for personalizing the learning experience of children with the ability.

Number two, we know that when children with intellectual disabilities are included, everybody win. Bolon goes down, graduation rates go up, high scores go up. And imagine, and people think, if you have to tell with a disability, my kids class, my, it's not going to learn the opposite, your kids going to learn more.

So yeah, this will benefit all kids. The third thing we can say about A I is that we're not at the table right now. We're not at the table as people are building the models.

We're not at the table as people are thinking about the application of the models. For making life Better. We're not at the table listening to the needs and uh and gifts of people with intellect.

Al chAllenges their families, their friends, their brothers, their sisters. So we've got this school with enormous potential. We can see IT.

Our parents can see IT overwhelming number, seventy, eighty to a high eighty percent. Yeah, we want this for our kid. Yes, we want our kids to learn IT. But we're not there now, which is why, if I can say this in a class way now, i'm so excited to be talking to your audience because your audience and and your community is on the inside. You're behind the you know for us in the court, you're the guys do in the real work you know you're making IT all happened and we just all we want to say is, hey, loves, we're raise in our hands over here. We want to help you but we also want you to help us right and so what .

does that look like? Your vision, the beginnings of visions? What's the um yeah now we were talking .

the other day, well, what's are exactly this? We don't have a strategy. It's too early. I don't and maybe special pcs very much rober grass roots movements. So strategy started often emerges from the field. I like I could see a time when an A I is enabled the olympics coach to do what we can do. Today we have three, four and three, over six million.

If we can all have a coach, and there's another six million on the sideline, as we can find them a coach, their coaches don't have the time to help them with nutrition and fitness, with hydro and functional skills, with tracking performance and developing skills and A I 的。 So coach to be that companion. IT doesn't replace human contact with supplements and compliments.

Human contact. Think about just in the context of physical activity, splay, social engagement. But then think about that same kind of coach, if he will, in classroom.

Think about that coaching was helping people manage behavior issues of motion, self regulation. How do I find time, like when I need to see help? How do I do at the A I coach should be right here.

Hey, you know, you're struggling with stress. You're not seeing included how do I get home? The coach can almost be there to talk me through, to work me through these more social and emotion. I mean, the headline areas without huge technological advances, for my understanding, A, I could really make life Better. I mean, i'm going to say that want I know there are risks we can talk about, but A I can make life Better for people who for centuries upon centuries have been excluded from the basic means to make life Better.

In the case of of A I, you know it's a huge umbrella term. We're sort of in this stage that I I ve heard some folks referred to profit somebody was on the show against and the show referred to IT as kind of where the applications face, where the models you know they made of explanation GPT and cloud. And the other release to the public and people start using them and and they caught on in everything.

And now people are figuring now how to build applications that leverage these models to do things to improve lives, right? And there's a lot of focus obviously on business and industry and and things like that. Ten is the what you seeing is that the developers and the free market whose building these apps on top of the models just aren't serving .

your community or is IT and yeah tweet out our column that we did on A I and that's olympics, the polling data. So now there is a obviously enormously powerful person that that had a one of the most helpful companies in the the world, microsoft, who is talking about IT. I don't want to say that people aren't interested.

I want to say that were a moment like most revolutions, if you look that i've left our folks out for decade, decade upon decade, we don't want that to happen this time. Uh, so we're planning to get ahead of IT. You know like like to invite a thing we want to invite ourselves in.

The application development says because we have huge confidence, there are people of goodwill who would like to see the applications of A I include our community. But to your point, if they're thinking about where's the most lucrative application of world is going to be into business the most, you know, popular applications to tell this going to affect you know seventy, eighty, ninety percent of the population, maybe that's not going to be asked. But you know the most impact for applications to build. I despise anyone to say there is an application for A I that would be more life change in the kinds application. So we can.

we call this an open call to the audience. You're this, you're developer. You want to be a developer.

yeah. You know, project managers, right? Whatever your skills are. Yes, this is an opportunity .

to get involved in the thanks where being heard on this issue at the highest vell of government, we have mini education around the world who are asking for solutions, for strategies, for protection, for building the kind of ground rules and the code of conduct that can make A I successful, protecting safety, privacy, security, these, at the same time, spend to the needs. So, you know, serious, put us on the stage, at the level of political leaders, and had many other stages. I don't know mini to just that, but the open calls, you know, we need A G seven meeting with the g seven of chat, right?

You know google and microsoft, all these guys, we work that g seven meeting and I want to send to give a key od address of batch and batch seven that the the the big seven or the big whatever IT is and invite them, you know, just say exactly what you just say, no, look again, you know, we're going to change the world. That's not a question. We know that.

Our parents know that it's of kids family. They know it's common. We want to make IT great. You know, we want to join you and and I I have no doubt IT in mad audience, there were people both film tropically using their kind of passionate purpose minds, but also from a business .

point of you saying.

yeah, but if you do this, if we go, the the strategy are special pics code IT helped with sports, with hygiene, social need. And so guess who will benefit everybody but these kids bit so anyway, it's it's a potential real .

win win since brought up the g seven. And maybe this call, maybe this podcast will Spark you know the the big tech seven commit to, uh, the special table. So you want to talk about the g seven that you just attended and maybe dr tail, whatever direction that makes sense for you to start, but getting a little bit to your work with the U.

S. Government and kind of what the U. S. Government has been doing to drive the government and drive access to assistive technologies for folks with .

disabilities. Finites actually take IT first, a broadview bring IT back to you. So, and take what is really important from a foreign icy kind of lens.

You know, we have A G seven, we have g twenty, we have a portion. We, we have the c five. First one.

So the central agent countries post the U. S. These are all the multifaceted in every single of spaces. There's N A I discussion happening either an A I ministry meeting actually during the seven, eight million minister meeting. There's an A I went happening at the same time OK.

And so just with that perspective, right, a lot of times these A I leaders and i've been to a lot of different A I conferences, are not thinking about, as tim said, but not think about the disability and ability there. not. And this is where IT.

It's really important on one hand, for governments are working on disability. This is a call for anyone that's working on disability within government beyond how do you insert yourself in those main and I spaces and say, hey, ability to to b i'll give one example. So also on the southeast asia countries right now, they're negotiating digital conomo ramework agreement.

How do we make sure the ability disabilities part of that rate not you know. So these are the things that we need to map out and understand in A I spaces. And how do we make sure we bring the disability community, we bring organization disabilities, we bring and ability experts to the table a supper one.

Number two is, you know, to the point of timeless, we bring value, we bring innovation. When you do when air is not accessible, if further martialists es A I for this technology. Is this A I for six of technology? But there's also A I in general that will building me to make sure ts of great two layers.

And when you bring people to this to those spaces like you, if you know microsoft teams, there's an automatic captioning. Where did that come from? That came from an employee of microsoft step needed to make sure it's accessible for him. And that automated capture was created because of him. And now everyone uses automatic.

I is still built on a bias data, which actually has been hurting us in a lot of different spaces, including a plan to jobs for when when companies are using A S in the form so that battle layers using the conversation we need to make, bring to the multing spaces and the little spaces to say, hey, you need to bring the business community point to that. We also work on making sure for bringing outscoring the disability community into A I development hiper security log, and we should be part of. So to answer your question about g seven, this year, we had the first over g seven inclusion instability.

Minister's leading IT was on the protocol level. IT was g seven ministers of disability and their delegations coming together where we talked about it's technology and A I. We talk to about independent living.

We talked about crisis and IT was amazing and thinks to italy we had to buy private sector and government. We need to continue eleven disability through that, but we also need to continue mainstream disability through through the other ministerial meetings are happen through year. And I think that as important again, IT goes back to the twin track approach.

And I just want to end to one last point. A I is a to be a solution to so many different issues, whether it's climate disaster, whether you know terms of uh, responding to Prices, whether it's food insecurity Prices, farmers and the technology that they use, whether IT is an economic business development. We need to make sure if a eyes evolution for a lot of those faces, we need to make sure that this ability lands also part of interest across the board through that.

Sure to to your point, there's so much that digital technologies of all source lend themselves to flexibility, right? And lend themselves to being able to you know, make the information accessible through whatever, whether it's you through. Dio, or through images and text or you know going forward through robot action and another sort of more physical means.

Please correct me where i'm wrong here, but kind of ism hearing the sort of a larger issue of you know across all these different spaces in in the world and things that people do in ways that whether it's legislation or or private uh, enterprise with things get done folks with disabilities and bringing A I to you know the disability community is IT something that needs to happen more. And i'm wondering if that you know in your work, if that's a primarily governmental function, is that kind of a public private partnership is you know, as with most things, sort of some of both know government and then you have individuals like the person of microsoft to you know out of a personal need. There was the thing that that helps so many people. I'm not asking so much where the responsibility lies, but just sort of how does this happen? How how do people get more of a seat at the tip 东西？

Really good question. I think it's the combination of a few things. One, yes, it's a policy issue where how do we ensure that when companies are developing A I is a standard that IT is accessible for, all right?

How do we get to that point where companies need to you know bringing that length from the get go? Um because then that would change because I I have so many conversations to start of companies and and and as a cos your bed of virgin going and this is accessible but not yet, not now, maybe later. Right right? There is also narrative issue. Where are we are an invisible population of a lot of the time we are a population that people don't think about us.

But many times I here oh, never thought about this, right? And this goes back to why having a conversation with you and with other folks in the media world and indrawing world that we bring and make more visible mention between A I and disable, A I disable and security climate, what are the more people, those forward through the meeting world, create more of the narrative, the more than people think about IT and bring IT forward. I think it's mutilated, but I think people i'm .

speaking with cerement cara and doctor Timothy driver. Sarah is the special advisor and international disability rates at the united states department of state and ten is the chairman of the board of special olympics. And we've been talking about the role of the role in AI can play and will play and can more broadly, uh, the role of assistive technology and technologies in general and how people with learning disabilities, other disabilities have not have as much of a seat, the table.

So we've been calling IT just have not been as much of a part of the process as uh really they should be for a number of reasons, bending all of us that there have been talking about. Uh, as we were saying, Sarah, I has just come from the g seven meetings in italy and the first every ministerial and inclusion and disability. So of course, when we're talking about the growing presence of A I and its ability for me, I think about its ability, hyper personalized things.

And you know the the sort of positive side of that, the Sunny side is the ability to just really advance the way that we learn and fitting different modalities and skill levels and interest needs and abilities, disability in all of those things. Like the dark side of that is the endless grow, right? I am guilty of IT as much as anybody where i'll find myself reading for device, looking at something because it's interesting to me at least that's what I perceive IT and then how much time goes by and I feel sort of isolated and lonely and maybe not that create because I ve just been kind of tomb screwing for a while. You know, it's something that a tim for the podcast I read so much there, your thoughts directly, some articles, some things I think have some thoughts on that that, uh, the audience should be interested here.

I mean, I think first, all the risk is real. We do live at a time when most Young people in this country, united day at this are either long or or mean, I say most just over fifty percent, depending on as you can, as an enormously painful number. Yes, it's shocking.

The think of sixteen, eighteen year old, more than half the ceiling spare about the future, a negative impression about their own capacity, is trustful of others as a recipe for disaster. So we got to take that issue seriously for people with another develop disability that's been the nor or centuries, yeah lonely, isolated, left, out, right. So here's the point.

We need a ground swell of innovation right now. I me this technology is coming out, not when the printing press came out or when the comb engine came out and when the personal computer came out. In all those areas, people with disabilities were invisible.

Today we are on playing field. Look at service role. Look at her leadership. We're on the plane field. You want to make this revolution different, right? We want to make IT more thoughtful about human interactions, more aggressive on innovation, more attentively to the risks of isolation and despair and distrust that we see all around us. This technology, uh, maybe we can talk about all in grandiose terms, all the things that can do, but if he doesn't do this well, IT will have failed humanity. This is my view.

If we don't seal distrust in the fear in our relationships, and if we don't use IT to mpower people on the margins to join the mainstream and empower people in the mainstream, open their hearts and minds to what they will learn from people who have been excluded, if we don't do that technology, you will have failed us. I don't care health IT writes a novel. I don't care how fast you can solve a quite, you know, a complex problem.

IT will fail us if IT does not address this. Fundamental attention are all over the world right now, which is how we deal this fear and this anxiety and this just trust between us. So, you know, is that real?

You know, people are talking about warning labels, shows that a real thing. Anybody has got a child who was a teenager or or older, who has the device is worried. I mean that I mean, like ninety eight percent of parents are very so that's not a joke.

That's a real fear. But, you know, I think sereni agree on this. I'm not waiting for the government to show us how to do this. I don't know.

The government can CoOperate at the innovative energy, creative energy, the rate, the boundaries of what possible energy, that will come from the private sector, that will come from coder, that will come from engineers, that will come from people who are being honest, and then they will say, hey, mr. Government, look what I can do for your kids, look what I can do for healthcare. Look what I can do for community building.

You know, join me. But the creative energies gotta come from the business and the technology sector. I am confident we can do IT. But there is right. People like ara, me, and in the millions of people with the government, their families, they're going to have to be, how self add, keep hitting the door and say, what a minute, don't leave without us. We have the key for a successful revolutionary to time.

Thank you. Time for what you said is so true. And if A I technologies made that without any in mind and further gines failed, here's what really bothers me a lot.

In traveling the world, I still have communities that say, you know, they're find that people, they are not in their homes. They are still shackling people. There's still people in institutions.

There's still the ization of people disabilities, right? So this still is a reality. Sometimes I I talk to companies and they are talking about the chAllenge of people. This is getting to employment.

They say, well, you know, they can just work from their home or they can just, you know, you know, whatever is the solution is always let them just stay behind. Sorry you, but that's not right and that we should accept that in A I if it's made without accessibility, further leave its good. But again, if I is made with disability in mind, IT can allow us to be further including society.

Again, for me, I use technology on a not even more than hours basis, right? Like because of acts are able to ber and able to location, because of up and able to use. But again, there a lot of apps and websites are not accessible from that able.

Why is a simple thing is that there was big from there from the beginning, right? This now that are being fancy, and there's the touch screens of things. But again, i'm able to turn on, turn on and turn off my life on my own without having someone helping me up.

You can have any solution for that, but again, it's because they don't have this in mind. So my ask is always we need to get to a point where it's a standard. We see the disability community, they walk at the table and sorry, but it's not enough people table, but he at the table is the space physical accessible, is IT for people, is is not ough say a the seed to the table. And then from there, I wanted get to a point where companies demand this because they see the the valley that brings. So this goes back to narrow change.

No, it's a fight that I think we all need to fight on behalf one another. And I I think you both particularly much Better than I could, but that's the feeling i'm coming away with. So sir, can I see? Thank you so much for taking the time for folks who are listening, who want to learn more, who want to donate their skills, who want to get involved, to have a as the innovative idea that's gonna change things. So i'll with you, where can folks go online to? We don't have to be in mind that there's a website to learn more about the work that you are doing, about the work is going on in in any of the governments or other organizations you involve with what is a good place for listeners to go.

Definitely see the public social media um the deer was handled, the website, there's media notes that come out to. Um so all of our travels as media notes of the work are doing if you're are in a certain country, the U. S. Embassy will always be untouched. The work that we're doing .

and tasted and ten for folks who want to learn more. I mean.

look, the special big movement is in pretty much problem, I am guessing, every country that are listener of this podcast and listening. And so if you're .

after listening and the best olympics is not visible in your country, and please try to yeah if you've .

got a great idea, let me tell you, this is a movement that is composed of creative, innovative Rogers. Our founders were rebels in pursuit of social and political change. That only way they got what they got.

That way we got one hundred and ninety countries of the way we are. Volunteers are movement volunteers. Ninety nine percent of our perces volunteers. So we welcome the innovative energy of citizens to want to make a different, like a personal email.

He driver, E S H R I V E R special olympic toward, right? Me, if you ve got an idea, this is a movement that is eager and any of as as angry and is frustrating and as few infuriating as IT is so many times to be an advocate or person with intellectual or development or a physical disciplinary disability. As frustrating as IT is this is a hopeful community 的 yeah and it's a community that wants anticipation and it's a community that wants to brain a greater degree of file of the world。

It's not a where a community is hungry for the chance. And everybody said that I know if I missed out of the same thing. Once I opened the door, once I saw, once I went, once I, I gave you a chance.

Thank my life. Very few people say, oh, i'm not ceremony car SHE convinced me to do something, and now i'm never gonna do IT again. Most of the people like I matter SHE told me to do this.

And wow, things are so much Better. Same thing is true that big. So I hope the message people here when they listen, well, there's some folks out there really need me and want me and would want to me. And again, I hope you here in .

that being inclusive as a starting guy and get involved.

I mean, of the simple, I don't for that, you know, one thing everyone can do right now, tex H, R, and your and your company, if your company is got six people, have got six thousand of, got six hundred thousand. X, H, R. Do we hire you just send that one text and you watch if the answers know you're gona get a change of policy and if the answer is yes, you going to learn about people in your company that can make a .

different here we go, tim, sir, thank you again. Let's do IT again sometime down .

the road and hopefully .

will have positive new the S O.

Coach, the so coach. Yeah ah you heard to hear first. Thank you all so much. I go.

Thanks, everyone.