Joeita interviews Darryl Adams, Director of Accessibility at Intel, about his journey with accessible technology and his predictions about AI as a vehicle for disability inclusion.
Joeita interviews Darryl Adams, Director of Accessibility at Intel, about his journey with accessible technology and his predictions about AI as a vehicle for disability inclusion.
Highlights:
It All Started in the Cafeteria
Darryl Adams’ mission to make a more accessible PC started with an epiphany in the Intel cafeteria in 2007. Adams was meeting his colleague, to discuss a new passion project: a device that would scan printed text and read it out loud for people with severe dyslexia, like his colleague, or visual impairment, like Adams.
Fast forward to today, Darryl Adams is the Director of the Intel Accessibility Office.
Darryl Adams Opinion piece: “Intel’s Commitment to Building an Inclusive and Accessible World"
Follow Darryl Adams online: LinkedIn, X / Twitter
Joeita Gupta:
I am Joeita Gupta, and this is The Pulse. Assistive technology is used by people with disabilities to perform tasks which might otherwise be impossible or difficult. These products range from physical devices like wheelchairs, hearing aids, white canes, glasses, and prosthetic limbs, as well as digital solutions such as facial recognition, text to speech software, and even time management software. And the rapidly expanding field of artificial intelligence is a game changer, making navigation, health management systems and a lot more far more accessible to people with disabilities. And companies, be they large corporations or plucky startups, have worked hard to ensure that technology can be accessible to people with disabilities. In this way, these advances in technology have opened up new opportunities for people with disabilities. Today, we discuss disability access and technology. It's time to put your finger on The Pulse.
Joeita Gupta:
Hello, and welcome to The Pulse on AMI Audio. I'm Joeita Gupta. I'm delighted to welcome to the program Darryl Adams, who is the Director of Accessibility at Intel. Hello and welcome to The Pulse. I'm really delighted you could speak to me today. How are you?
Darryl Adams:
I'm doing very well, thank you. And it's a pleasure to be here.
Joeita Gupta:
I'm sorry to ask such an ignorant question, but when I think about Intel, I think about the company that makes computer processors and chips, and I'm a little confused as to how Intel gets into the accessibility game. Maybe you can enlighten me a little bit.
Darryl Adams:
Sure, and that's actually quite a common question because it's true that Intel is a processor manufacturer, but I think the other side of the story is that in addition to just manufacturing processors, we also really develop computer architecture. And that architecture is what informs computer hardware. And the hardware is really that constraint around how all software is developed based on the hardware that it's developed for. So when we are able to add new capabilities to computer architecture and the ability to use AI acceleration on the computer or adding new sensors that interact with the environment and with users now, we have a lot more different tools that software developers can use to make a better user experience for everyone.
Joeita Gupta:
And 27 years ago, I was still a tweenager or a teenager, but you had already started working for Intel at that time. Tell me a little bit about your journey with the company and how you get into working in the area of access tech.
Darryl Adams:
Sure thing. Well, it's probably the important thing to note here is that I have retinitis pigmentosa, so RP, and so I'm losing my from the outside in and I'm also deaf in my right ear. So I'm coming in through my career with a couple of different sensory disabilities that tend to make day-to-day tasks a bit more challenging. And with the RP, because it's declining, through my career, I've had to really adapt to different ways of doing my job, different ways of interacting with the technology that I need to do my job. And so that pathway really led me to an epiphany that where I can actually do better than just trying to figure this out for myself. Working at Intel potentially gives me the opportunity to look at technology in a much more broader lens and across the whole spectrum of disability to see if we could make changes that can help people everywhere have a better time accessing that technology. So that's the motivation. And when I started with Intel, I've always had somewhat of a technical role, but usually leading technical projects, research and development, and just sort of cutting-edge technologies. And so it's always been my passion to be looking at how we're changing the future of how people interact with technology. Now I've just encapsulated that and really trying to focus on people with disabilities and how we can remove barriers for everyone.
Joeita Gupta:
I remember a moment when I bought my first scanner and had access to my first scanning software, and I went to the local library and I snatched books off the shelf. For the first time in my life, I wasn't thinking about how big or small the print was. I wasn't concerned about whether I'd be able to read something. I just grabbed books because I felt such a tremendous amount of freedom. I wonder if you look back on your life, if there was a moment when you grabbed, with both hands, the unending possibility inherent in technology. I mean, I can hear how passionate you are about doing the work and making technology accessible, but if you look back on your life, was there a moment where you sat up and said, "Darryl, this is amazing. This is how you can change the world?"
Darryl Adams:
I think there are probably a few moments, but I think actually the moment, that moment, the epiphany moment was more of a reckoning for me in the sense that I felt like I was at a crossroad where I wasn't going to be able to do the job that I had and that I needed to embrace technology in a different way in order to move forward and just not remove myself from the job. So that embracing just the idea that, okay, now I need to go take a look at this, there's a different way of doing things and I don't have to follow the path that I see everyone else doing. I can chart my own course. And that flexibility was the key. It's like now I understand that I can look at my screen in a different way or I can have my screen talk to me or just these kinds of different modalities. That sense that we could be customized and configurable and personalized is really the driver. We can do that to some degree today, but I think the potential in the future is far greater.
Joeita Gupta:
Yeah, absolutely. Earlier in our conversation, you referenced the analogy of being an architect, which really appealed to me in that you can actually come in when you're designing hardware and software at the level of the foundation or coming in at the basement level. How do you sell that idea to tech developers who might be living with many of the same conceptions that people have about making things accessible, that it's too expensive, it's too complicated, and it doesn't serve a large enough market share to justify spending a lot of money making things accessible. When you hear arguments like that, how do you respond?
Darryl Adams:
It is an absolutely difficult challenge. I think the way that I look at this is that to a large degree, what I'm trying to accomplish is figuring out how to bring more people into the mix at scale. And so if we think about, if you buy a computer and it's not accessible to you, there's something about that design that doesn't work for you individually, and then you have to buy something in addition to that in order to make it work for you. So what I'm trying to sort through is how can we bring more of that capability, more of that flexibility and design to that base computer so that when you buy it, it simply works for you? Because I think the economies of scale here is an important aspect, it's not the only one. But certainly, if we can bring a broader set of use cases and capabilities to the actual device that is selling millions and millions of units and selling at that scale, then it would be more accessible to more people.
Darryl Adams:
I think that there's still going to be always a space for very specific assistive tech that meets a very targeted need. And I think the driver for these products is that, over time, they do get less expensive because simply of Moore's law. So it's basically the idea that each year technology compute is progressing and the cost is declining, but then we kind have that sort of relatively same price point for a computer year over year, but you're getting far more for it.
Joeita Gupta:
Yeah, absolutely. And also, you're moving away from designing this special device for people with disabilities and really moving towards models of accessibility which build access into technology from the ground up so that it's not so much an afterthought as it is something that is inherent in the design of a product. One of the things that I'm really excited about and take it with a grain of salt, because I'm just the end user, I'm not a tech person, but one of the things that has me interested and intrigued is artificial intelligence. And I wonder if you see some of the potential that I see in how this can be a game changer for people with disabilities. And I'm wondering if Intel is doing some work around artificial intelligence that might make life a little bit easier for everyone.
Darryl Adams:
I do agree that it is game changing in many ways. I think the way that I look at it is to begin with, it's more of the artificial intelligence that has been around for a bit longer. Concepts like computer vision and natural language processing, these alone when you couple them with sensing cameras on computers and different ways of sensing the user and the behavior, this gives us a whole new way of interacting with the computer and the computer understanding us more naturally, which I think is a really big step, that the idea that people can interact with technology in a natural way rather than a technical way is a good leap for everybody, but very important for people with disabilities in particular.
Joeita Gupta:
And is there something that Intel might be working on in particular that is harnessing the potential in the power of AI?
Darryl Adams:
Yeah, there's a couple of things. So in general, when you buy a computer today and going forward, you are very likely to be buying what is now called an AI PC, which means that we're very specifically targeting AI use cases on the client. So this is stuff that's happening on your computer, not happening in the cloud, which, really, for all of these things improves latency, improves performance and accuracy. So then now that we have that new capability, the question becomes how do we want to apply that? And there are so many different ways that this can be useful, and one of them is a company that we've been working closely with called Cephable, and what they bring to the table is a multimodal way of interacting with a computer.
Darryl Adams:
So if you are somebody who finds a keyboard or a mouse to be a barrier in any way to accessing technology, accessing your device, you can use Cephable to create ways that work around the keyboard so you can start using your voice and any combination of facial recognition or facial gestures to emulate keyboard commands to do the work that you want to do. And this is just a really nice step in the direction of saying that the computer can work with what you have and not expecting you to have to do something specific to work with it. So it's flipping the script on who's the boss here. So I think that's really helpful. And I just really love the idea that as we get more flexibility in how we interact, where AI comes back into the fold is with generative AI, now we can think about experiences that just get generated in real time for us rather than going to pre-designed experiences that may not work for us. Couple these two things together and we have a much more compelling experience.
Joeita Gupta:
What do you mean by generative AI, for those of us who are not in the know?
Darryl Adams:
So over the last couple of years, it's a machine learning capability that... Think of it as a transformer capability. So you're going to transform one type of input into a different type of output. So I might type in a description in text and then the outcome could be an image or it could be a video or vice versa. I might say, "Here's an image, describe that", and it will give me a really accurate description in text of what that image is. So I think that's really fundamental for all of us who struggle with any type of barrier with technology is that this ability to transform from one type of input to a different type of output on the fly in real time, it just basically makes every interaction personalized and more appropriate for our own contexts.
Joeita Gupta:
What would you say to the people who raise red flags about privacy, about handing over too much information, who are suspicious of artificial intelligence and may have ethical concerns about using this technology? How would you put their fears to rest?
Darryl Adams:
This is a podcast all unto itself. So I think there's a couple of different things there. One is that as far as the fear and the privacy piece, I think it is up to us and up to the tech industry to continue to create ways where we are building trust with technology. In the past, maybe that's not been so great, but I think it's important to think about how we can store personal information on a device in a secure way that will not be shared with anyone or anything else. And I think that part of that trust cycle is if when you give personal information to a device, then it somehow gets into the cloud and then it gets into marketing, all these different things happen and it's out of your control. So I think we have some work to do in terms of making sure that we are able to take personal information and store it locally and make sure that it is safe from intrusion. And as we do that, I think the goal is to earn that trust. But I think that's a fundamental thing because the way I look at this is that we're talking about changing the relationship between people and technology, and every relationship is built on trust. So if we can't start with trust, then we have a longer road to get to a workable relationship.
Joeita Gupta:
Speaking of trust, one of the ways in which I have been coaxed to put my trust in technology is by embracing some of this fantastic wayfinding software that is out there now. And I have good days and I have bad days, but I've heard that Intel has an exciting new initiative that you're launching. It's a wayfinding initiative you're launching during the Paris Olympic games. Tell me a little bit more about that.
Darryl Adams:
So this started, actually, pre-pandemic. We were doing research with Intel employees who were blind or visually impaired, and we were trying to understand the barriers that they faced in our workplace. So instead of just the hypothetical ideas of what someone might experience, it's really let's get down to what are the jobs that we're doing, what are the barriers that we're facing? And then we were thinking as we understand those barriers, Intel Labs, our research and development group, develops all kinds of technology that we think we might be able to apply to address some of these barriers. And let's maybe look at that in our workplace, and if we can find things that work, then maybe those would be good candidates to move into products for everyone.
Darryl Adams:
And the thing that we found was that the biggest challenge that our employees had was actually navigating our campuses because they're large and they're complex, and it was just getting from your desk to the cafeteria, all these kinds of things were just really challenging. So we thought about indoor wayfinding as something we could tackle. And it turns out that in the labs we were doing a lot of work training robots how to navigate indoor spaces along with people safely and effectively. And so we started looking at that. But then we realized that there's a lot of companies in the industry that are trying to tackle this problem, so we took the approach to start partnering externally so we could then just help provide some of those foundational building blocks to applications that already exist to make them more effective.
Joeita Gupta:
And so what are you doing as part of the Olympic games? How is this software being scaled up so that it can be used during the Olympics?
Darryl Adams:
So for the Olympics in Paris, we are demonstrating this technology at the training center for the US Olympic team. And so when athletes arrive in Paris, they're able to use an app on their phone that will allow them to select a destination, and then it will give them turn-by-turn directions indoors. It would function very much like a GPS in the car functions today, or some of the outdoor apps that give you turn-by-turn directions. But instead of using satellite, it's using a pre-developed map that was created with a special LIDAR sensor that gives all the information that's required in terms of distance and that type of thing indoors. The challenge with indoor wayfinding is that because GPS doesn't work, you have to come up with new technologies to address or to define what that indoor space looks like and then present it to the user in a way that makes sense and is simple to consume.
Joeita Gupta:
Speaking of wayfinding software, I like using wayfinding software. And the first time I did was right after the pandemic and I was walking down the street and this app was announcing all these restaurants, and I knew for a fact that those restaurants no longer existed because of the pandemic and nobody was going out to eat. And it made me think that when one works in tech and has a passion for accessible tech, is it enough to talk to corporate partners and talk to ERGs and have those conversations about making tech accessible or is there a bigger piece that needs to be taken into consideration? What's the point of wayfinding technology or GPS technology if the information it gives you is out of date? So it feels like you need to have more people at the table, what do you think?
Darryl Adams:
I would agree. Yeah, and that goes back to the previous point around trust as well.
Joeita Gupta:
Yes.
Darryl Adams:
If you are using technology and you know that what you're hearing or experiencing is not correct, then that's a problem with trust, or at least the trust is removed. Yeah, I think certainly, we're on the path toward solutions, and I think that's probably an important thing to be clear about is that these are not solved problems today. They are problems that I think a lot of people are in the business of trying to solve, but we do not have complete solutions yet. And I think the example that you're describing is a perfect way to describe the current state in the sense that we're trying these things out, we're making progress, we're seeing the potential, and we have to continue playing that forward because a lot of things have to change.
Darryl Adams:
Not only is the data quality issue that you've described, we need a mechanism to update in real time to make data accurate, but everything about the form factor needs to improve. The speed, the latency, all of these things need to continuously evolve to a point where it becomes supernatural. Not supernatural, it needs to be to the point where we want feel like people. When I go outside, I don't want to feel like a robot. I want to feel like I'm just walking down the street and I'm just getting the information that I need when I need it, and nothing more, nothing less. That's the dream. And I think that we're well on a path to getting to that reality.
Joeita Gupta:
Well, on that happy note, let me ask you, in the few minutes that we have left, fast forward 25 years into the future, that seems pretty safe. What's your vision for access tech and what role do you see yourself playing?
Darryl Adams:
That is a long time. So I think it's a little bit, the same theme prevails here. My thinking is that as compute capability continues to increase near exponentially or certainly non-linearly, it's a really fast, rapid increase in computing capability raw. I think as that happens, instead of becoming more technologically immersed, things are going to feel more natural and more human. The way that we interact with technology, the way that we interact with each other will be much more natural on how we... Just like you're sitting down talking with somebody in person, it's going to have that feel to it. The technology will blend in to the fabric of society, essentially, and we're just going to be able to feel more human. And it is my hope that we're moving toward a place where we value that human connection and we're optimizing for the quality of human connection that's meaningful through really high quality communication and and inclusion. Basically bringing everyone into that mix and making sure that we're not leaving people behind in that journey.
Joeita Gupta:
Big dreams. I like the way you think. Personally, I'd be happy if they just eliminate the blue screen of death. If I don't ever have to see that again, I'll be quite happy. Darryl Adams, thank you very much for joining me today. It was such a pleasure.
Darryl Adams:
Thank you so much for having me.
Joeita Gupta:
That was Darryl Adams, Director of Accessibility at Intel. If you have any thoughts about my conversation with Darryl, don't forget to leave comments down below. And if you haven't already done so, if you are listening to the podcast or watching us on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe to be notified about future episodes. If you have any feedback, write to AMI at feedback@ami.ca. That's the email address. You can also give us a call at 1-866-509-4545. That's 1-866-509-4545. And don't forget to leave permission to play the audio on the program. You can also find us on X at AMIAUDIO. Use the hashtag PULSEAMI to let everyone know that you are tweeting the show. You can find me on X at JOEITAGUPTA. We are, of course, also found on Facebook at Accessible Media Inc. So a couple of ways for you to get in touch with us. Don't forget to comment down below. I love to hear what you have to say. And if you have any thoughts about this episode or ideas for future shows, also feel free to let me know.
Joeita Gupta:
The technical producer for the show today is Jordan Steves, along with Marc Aflalo, of course, Ryan Delahanty is the coordinator for AMI Audio podcast. Andy Frank is the manager for AMI Audio, and I've been your host, Joeita Gupta. Thanks so much for listening.