Articles

Original articles on digital accessibility, research, and practice.

• Machine Learning and Digital Accessibility: What Works, What Fails, and What Gets Lost in Between

  Bob Dodd — 2026-03-18

  AI is simultaneously the most promising tool and the most documented source of harm in recent accessibility research. This article examines approximately 235 papers revealing where machine learning helps — captioning accuracy improved by 5.6%, web navigation 52% faster, audio description production halved — and where it fails: fabricating image descriptions, reproducing ableist stereotypes in career chatbots, homogenising personalised AAC tools, and systematically excluding anyone whose body or speech falls outside training data norms.

  • machine learning
  • artificial intelligence
  • AI fairness
  • AI ethics
  • generative AI
  • large language models
  • computer vision
  • speech recognition
  • automated testing
  • assistive technology
  • blind and low vision
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • neurodiversity
  • training data
  • AI bias
  • disability