Technology is moving at an ever rapid pace. Some of the recent “AI” things to come along is one area that comes to mind. AI has its flaws and used incorrectly can do great harm, but it also can also improve the quality of life for others. Don’t stop them from using tools that help them, no matter your belief of such tools.
Ok, that’s the tip. You don’t have to read further. But if you desire to continue, I need to let you know what comes next is me processing an interaction I had that spawned today’s quick tip.
I’m angry
I’m talking Bruce Banner, “you won’t like me when I’m angry.” I’m talking “burning like one thousand suns” angry. But I refuse to stay this way.
Let me set this straight, I despise the current “AI” tools on the market. When I’m talking about “AI” I’m referring to a collection of advanced machine learning services. Everything from Speech-to-Text, Text-to-speech, Vision processing, LLMs like ChatGPT, Siri, and many more. I am lumping these together because they are all the same thing, really fancy pattern recognition models that try to do a task on our behalf. They aren’t intelligent. They do not have spontaneous original thought. Even when you ask it to make something up.
The current method of building these models is unethical, exploitive, and violates the law. Every corporation building a model on stolen work needs to pay for that work, either directly to the artists by licensing agreements or in a government fine. People need to lose money over this.
There are more ethical ways to build them. And we can make it more sustainable. When I can contribute to that, I do. I still don’t like it.
Time marches on
Like when we could control fire, forge metal, tame beasts, and shifting to the industrial revolution. To the age of the knowledge worker, and now AI. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to embrace it. You need to accept it’s existence, and if you are die hard on your stance, don’t lash out on users. Help people build better more ethical tools.
But here is the thing, Siri, Copilot, and a collection of connections to important sites and tools, my wife can manage her day. She uses Copilot to look up locations of phrases and verses in different translations of books. This eliminates her needing to get up and down frequently to grab books on her shelves, and the books – they’re all public domain.
Why does this matter to me?
My wife has POTS and hEDS, ADHD, multiple TBIs, and an AVM that has stroked out multiple times. Her spine is deteriorating. At the age of 30 she lost the ability to talk and walk. She fought back from that. Eight months before we started dating, she had been the passenger in a car that was t-boned. The doctors weren’t certain how she survived. I’m also disabled. My ability to to assist her is limited by my vestibular disorder. I’m also a digital accessibility specialist.
When we got together after 20 years of friendship and sincere deep love crossed with horrible timing, the doctors gave her 2 to 5 years before her frontal temporal dementia would take her life. She immediately started studying, her favorite thing. She is life long learner who had learned enough medicine, veterinary, and law to where she was a solid advisor if you didn’t have a professional. She began doing brain exercises. She worked non-stop to hang onto what she had, and still does. But the slide is still happening.
Building confidence
Adding in Siri and wiring up her routine, she can work through her day. She can learn the books she’s studying. She usually listens to an audio book version first. She then reads the text. Then she uses Copilot to read it with her, like a screen reader (we tried NVDA, but she doesn’t like the voices). She’ll ask about different translations and what page they are in that version of the book. If she has the book, she can go find it on the shelf. If she doesn’t, she manually looks for copies online or to order. Occasionally, she asks for a summary if she struggled through understanding a section. If the summary doesn’t make sense, she starts over.
My wife doesn’t use AI as a therapist, friend, or chat buddy. It’s a tool to live a better life. This combination of items we built allow her to become more active with her friends and peers. It has allowed her to continue living a life where she doesn’t need memory care, because we built tools she can rely on.
She’s more vibrant now than she was 15 years ago. And this week we are are celebrating 7 years married. Something we were told wasn’t possible. We’ve slowed the slide to where we feel comfortable about planning the next 5 – 10 years of our lives.
If you have a problem with AI, that’s on you. Don’t gate keep people, especially the disabled. It’s worse when it comes from other disabled people.
My position
As for me? I despise AI. Especially Gen AI. Up until August 28th, 2025 my use of AI has only ever been for spell checking, reading level checking, and grammar. I used it just like I do the Editor in Word. Did I need it? No. Was it convenient and included in this platform? Yes.
But I want to like it. I want a summary of what I need to do during a day. I want something to help prioritize tasks. I want a tool that can seem my calendar at work, and home, and my wife’s. Want is the wrong word. I struggle daily to prioritize and time track. I’ve never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I also had a mother who started her career as a Special Ed teacher. By the time I hit high school, she was running the state’s Head Start program. It’s only seeing how my father operates since she passed that I now realize she taught my father, brother, and I how to survive in the world with ADHD without ever telling us.
On August 28th, I tried Copilot’s coding abilities for the first time. I also tried Gemini. I wondered what they could actually do. I provided a set of technology and rules to a game. I asked it to code it. I’ve written this game as practice code dozens of times. I also have twenty plus years of writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I always try a different method when building the game for fun and learning. On average, starting from 0, I can build the game in 40 hours. This is mostly because I’m horrible at typing. Gemini built it in two minutes. I reviewed the code, it was clean and accessible, and it functioned exactly how I told it to. I made a few more experiments over the week.
Then a project I had spent hours on last year for work popped back up into discussion. On the high from the tests, I started using Copilot to build the project anew. I achieved more in two hours with Copilot guiding me through the steps as a coach than I did all last year.
I am no longer going to use AI on this site. I still despise it. I don’t use AI at home, but members of my family do. I try hard to monitor their use for signs of danger, alas my kids are all adults and don’t always listen to what I say. I will use AI to help my colleagues and the disabled if it is appropriate.
Conclusion
You have a thought on this? Keep it to yourself. I’m not discussing this. I despise AI, but I will never stop someone from using any tech to make their quality of life better.
P.S.
BlueSky is more dangerous than Twitter. Why? I know the owner of Twitter doesn’t care about the abuse of others, so I expect to see the same on his site. I can anticipate what’s next.
On BlueSky, too many play at caring. Then stab you, tear you down, swear at you, call you names, threaten to SWAT you over a family member using AI?
I hoped social media wouldn’t devolve to that again. I was wrong. Homo Sapiens’ desire to give up its humanity for fame and fortune is too strong. Social media amplifies it to a disgusting level where civil discourse cannot exist. Like all the creatures that evolve to a crab form independently, all social media evolves into a cesspool of disrespect, evil, and villainy.
This is my website. These are my words. You don’t have to like them. And if you don’t, please excuse yourself from my lawn. If you find me on social media, say something nice. And if you feel you need to say something mean, know I’ll just block you.
So before making that comment, is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? And will it help the situation?
I have some deeper dive articles coming up, but that’s not for a few more weeks.
I’m taking a vacation.
