Nature, By Amanda Heidt

LINK: ‘Without these tools, I’d be lost’: how generative AI aids in accessibility

A rush to place barriers around the use of artificial intelligence in academia could disproportionately affect those who stand to benefit most.

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools — including chatbots such as ChatGPT, image generators such as Midjourney and DALL-E, and coding assistants such as Copilot — have arrived in force, injecting AI into everything from drafting the simplest grocery list to writing complex computer code. Academics remain divided over whether such tools can be used ethically, however, and in a rush to control them, some institutions have curtailed or completely banned the use of GAI. But for scientists who identify as disabled or neurodivergent, or for whom English is a second language, these tools can help to overcome professional hurdles that disproportionately affect marginalized members of the academic community.

“Everybody’s talking about how to regulate AI, and there’s a concern that the people deciding these guidelines aren’t thinking about under-represented individuals,” says Chrystal Starbird, a structural biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She recently turned her attention to how GAI can support diversity, equity and inclusion. “We have to make sure we’re not acting from a place of fear, and that we’re considering how the whole community might use and benefit from these tools.”

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