This week Joeita speaks to blind YouTuber Sam Seavey, creator of the Blind Life YouTube channel.
This week Joeita speaks to blind YouTuber Sam Seavey, creator of the Blind Life YouTube channel.
Highlights
Sam was diagnosed at age 11 with Stargardt’s, an early onset form of macular degeneration, and was legally blind by his mid-teens. Over the last 30 years, he has developed an extensive background in research and understanding of assistive devices and techniques of living with low vision.
Sam is the founder and creator of The Blind Life YouTube Channel, which, according to a recent article from the Foundation Fighting Blindness, “is currently the largest resource for assistive technology on the internet.” With more than 50,000 subscribers and over 700 informative videos, Sam helps people world-wide living with vision loss, offering tips for managing daily tasks, reviewing assistive devices, and hosting informative interviews with key stakeholders in the visually impaired community.
Sam is recognized as an expert when speaking and presenting at national conferences. Featured in USA TODAY, WIRED
Magazine, and numerous national and international podcasts on assistive technology, he collaborates with tech giants like Google, SONY and Amazon, has created content for numerous websites and participates on Microsoft’s Window’s Accessibility Advisory Board.
Sam currently manages the A-T program at a nonprofit where he provides training on assistive devices ranging from low tech items like simple bump dots and magnifiers, to phone apps and assistive computer software. Whether he’s working one on one with clients or through his YouTube videos, Sam’s goal is to help everyone live their BEST BLIND LIFES!
Links:
The Blind Life Website, YouTube & Podcast
Joeita Gupta:
I am Joeita Gupta, and this is The Pulse. When you think of technology from the perspective of a blind or low vision user, you can think in terms of two broad categories. The first is general technology, which includes things like laptops, smartphones, and cell phones, even GPS devices. Secondly, there is what is known as assistive devices. This category includes devices and technology specifically designed to help people with disabilities achieve daily tasks. Some common examples of assistive technology would be things like screen readers for people who are blind, screen magnification for people who have low vision, right through to things like braille watches and braille displays and braille printers. And with technology rapidly expanding in the way that it is, there is a hunger within the blind and low vision community to embrace the most cutting-edge tech. Today we discuss blindness and technology. It's time to put your finger on The Pulse.
Hello and welcome to The Pulse on AMI Audio. I'm Joeita Gupta joining you from my home in Toronto. I'm really excited to be talking blindness and tech. I feel like I don't do enough tech content on the pulse. Why would I? We have the Double Tap shows, which are so amazing, and I would not want to take away from Steve and Sean and the guys on Double Tap Canada doing such a great job. But every so often, seeing as I'm the producer as well as the host of the show, I do like to dip a toe in the water and talk a little bit about tech every once in a while on the program. And I'm really delighted to be joined today by a fantastic YouTuber and someone who has made technology for the blind their bread and butter. Sam Seavey is the host of The Blind Life, which is found as a podcast and on YouTube. Hello, Sam. Thanks so much for joining me on The Pulse. How are you?
Sam Seavey:
I'm doing very well, Joeita. Thank you very much for having me.
Joeita Gupta:
Tell me in as many words as you like what The Blind Life is all about.
Sam Seavey:
Sure. The Blind Life, it started as just a hobby way back 10 years ago, but it's turned into something much more. But it started out as just sharing my life, living with vision impairment. At the time when I started, there wasn't very much information on the internet about people living with vision loss, and so I wanted to share my life, 30 plus years of living as a VIP. And somewhere along the lines, though, it turned into being primarily about assistive technology. That's what I do for a living. I live AT every single day. I love it. I love sharing that information with people. And it has grown to be probably one of the best places to learn about assistive technology for the blind on the internet. And the YouTube channel is one of the top channels for the blind community, and it's been pretty awesome.
Joeita Gupta:
I'd say it is. But I'm sorry to cause trouble right out the gate here, but I have to be honest with you, when you think about blind tech, this wasn't the case 10 years ago, but now there are many people out there reviewing and talking about blind technology. So as a YouTuber or as a podcaster, what do you have to do to get your show to stand out in the crowd? Because you are a well-known name in the community and your channel has a lot of subscribers and things like that, but how do you go from a place where something that began as a hobby becomes a resource for so many blind people in the community?
Sam Seavey:
Well, it definitely wasn't overnight, that's for sure. And it wasn't easy. Just like growing anything from scratch, it took a lot of hard work, a long time, a lot of perseverance, a lot of being, I think a little bit obnoxious and hounding the distributors and the AT manufacturers and saying, "Hey, what about me? Send me stuff. I'll do a video." But speaking of hard work, every single year, I attend all of these big assistive technology conferences, ATIA, CSUN, I'm going to be at NFB next week in Orlando. And it's constantly, as they say, hitting the pavement and putting the work in and putting myself out there in front of all of these manufacturers, these distributors, and starting to build that reputation of high quality product reviews and honest reviews. And I think it seems that at least the public likes that and keeps coming back to watch the videos.
Joeita Gupta:
Do you find that your audience is primarily people who are visually impaired, or are you also getting a lot of traffic from sighted people who are curious about the blind as well as instructors and teachers of the blind? Is there a way for you to know who's actually watching your videos?
Sam Seavey:
No, unfortunately there isn't really a way to know that kind of demographic. But based on the comments I get, the emails and the interactions with people at these different conferences and things, yes, it is primarily people with vision loss who are curious about what's currently out there on the market regarding assistive technology. But a large portion of that is people working with the visually impaired, voc rehab counselors, AT specialists, O&M specialists, teachers of the visually impaired. They are watching my channel as well to stay up to date with what's currently on the market so that they can provide that information for their clients.
Joeita Gupta:
Okay. Well, I'm your target audience. I'm visually impaired. I am interested in tech. I should also offer the caveat that I'm not very technologically savvy. Tell me about some of the latest developments you've had a chance to cover in your YouTube channel that someone like me ... Again, bear in mind, I'm not some kind of a tech Jedi, but just an ordinary person. Tell me about some of the things that I might be able to incorporate as part of my repertoire of assistive devices.
Sam Seavey:
Well, so preface by saying I get that question all the time. It's usually email, "I have X vision impairment. What's going to be the best device for me?" And I answer that question with, "I have no idea." I have no idea because I try to explain how assistive technology is very task dependent. It depends on what you want to do. What are your goals? What are you trying to achieve? What is your level of vision loss? Because that's very important as well. As you mentioned in the opener, are you a screen magnifier user or is your vision past the point where that's going to be helpful and we need to start looking towards auditory enhancements? But just in general, I try to cover a wide variety of items on my channel, both super expensive, crazy, advanced high-tech stuff, but also DIY solutions that anybody can implement.
But one thing we've been talking about a lot lately, and it's the hot new thing, is AI. Everybody's talking about AI. And I think that's really going to be the next big boom in assistive technology. I think when people look back on AT and they think of the big milestones, we think of like Louis Braille, Ray Kurzweil, even video magnification has become incredible, smartphone, how they have helped with assistive technology. But I think AI is going to be right there in that list as well as being a turning point in assistive technology.
Joeita Gupta:
I agree with you. If you have Be My Eyes on your phone and you use the AI feature there, some of them image descriptions are fantastic. I have no complaints. Is that the kind of thing you're envisioning as well? Better, more detailed image descriptions? Because right now what you get for image descriptions is pretty shaky. "Image shows two people in front of a mountain," or something, and that doesn't really tell you very much. So what are some of the applications of AI that you're envisioning, apart from image description, which I think is a foregone conclusion.
Sam Seavey:
Yes. Yeah, so it's taken the traditional image descriptions that we've had or the scene detections that we've had, and it's taken it to a new level. But the real power of the AI is what comes after that. Being able to ask those follow-up questions and get that much more detailed granular information from what you're seeing. But what I see coming down the pipeline in the very near future with chat GPT-4.0 is being unveiled right now currently, and it is a much more conversational interaction with the AI assistant. And that's where I think it can be extremely helpful for us because it's simulating our human assistants, our sighted supporters, our loved ones, our spouses, our family members, the ones that help us every single day that we appreciate their help and we could not get through life without it. Everybody wants to be as independent as possible, and that's fantastic, but we still need to rely on people, and that's okay.
But these new AI models that are coming out are more simulating that, where I can just have a casual conversation and get real quick answers and help to my questions. If you can imagine you're at a Starbucks and you walk in and currently I can say, "All right, where's the counter?" And then I have to wait for the processing and then for a couple seconds later I finally get my response and then I ask my follow-up question, and then I have to wait some more time. It's not very quick. I get my information, but not in a fast manner. But now I can just have a conversation. "Where's the counter?" "Oh, it looks like the counter is at two o'clock." "How far away is it?" "Oh, it looks like it's about 20 feet in front of you." "Are there any obstacles there or any people in front of me?" "Yeah, it looks like there's two people waiting in line in front of you." It's getting that information, that super helpful information in a fast, speedy way that makes it extremely helpful. It's going to be awesome.
Joeita Gupta:
Yeah, that's the view that I take as well, that I'm willing to embrace it wholeheartedly because it's going to make life so much more convenient and it's going to be so awesome. But I have sighted friends who are extremely hesitant about AI because in the scenario that you've described, there are privacy concerns. We're giving up a lot of information, data about ourselves, our habits, where we go, what we do, what we shop, when we are at certain places. Do you think that in adopting artificial intelligence, there needs to be a conversation within the blind and low vision community about the ethics of adopting AI, especially some of maybe the privacy concerns and other issues that might crop up, that I don't know if we're really thinking about it as much as we should be?
Sam Seavey:
That's a very good point. That's a very valid point. A lot of people have those concerns, especially because we've been trained or conditioned through cinema, back in the eighties especially, that robots are going to rise up and take over the world and enslave the human race. And I don't know, maybe someday, but if it helps me before then, I'm all for it. But no, those are valid concerns and people can have those discussions. I live my life online. I've been a very public person for the last decade. So I don't really have those concerns personally. I prefer to look at the potential good that it's going to do our community, and it has the potential to be amazing.
Joeita Gupta:
The other piece of tech that I'm excited about ... And again, remember the caveat, I'm not a nerd and I'm not super big on tech. But the other piece of tech technology that has me intrigued is VR or virtual reality and whether that has some possibilities to make life easier for people who are visually impaired, or if that's the kind of technology that we are still locked out of. Because I've used a VR headset many years ago and it was cool, but I felt like I lost out on a lot of detail just because I couldn't see all of what was around me. It was cool I got to try it, but I don't know if I really got as much as I could have out of it.
Sam Seavey:
Yeah, so when we're talking about VR, there's a couple categories we might be referring to. There's a whole line of wearable devices now for low vision that utilize VR headsets, and they've been adapted to be a visual aid. You don't use it for playing video games or anything like that, it's used for video magnification and zooming in and reading and seeing fine detail and that sort of thing. You're absolutely right. Those have very small field of view. So if you're someone like me that I don't have central vision, so I utilize my peripheral for everything. So it does cut off your peripheral and it can restrict your peripheral vision and your field of view. So you do have to deal with that. Now, one category we might be talking about is more towards AR, which is augmented reality, and that's things like the new Apple Vision Pro headset that was just released, which I've got a full review video, several review videos on my channel about that product, or some of things like these Meta Glasses.
Well, the Meta Glasses aren't technically AR. But some of these devices that I could be looking in front of me and it will display information on the screen that will enhance the world in front of me. For example, if I needed navigation and I wanted to do turn by turn navigation through an app on my phone like Google Maps or Apple Maps, then the AR would also superimpose a high contrast yellow line on the ground in front of me that I could see through my glasses and would help guide me in the direction I needed to go. So I would get that audible turn by turn directions, but I would also get a visual indication path in front of me of where I needed to go. So those are AR devices and they're becoming much more popular. In fact, I'm working with a company right now in helping to develop something like that, and it's very exciting and has a lot of potential.
Joeita Gupta:
That's really interesting. Is it too early to give us a bit of a lowdown on what you're developing, or can you let the cat out of the bag a little bit for us?
Sam Seavey:
No, not at all. Well, I can't really talk about that. But there are some devices already out that use AR in the blind and visually impaired world. Things like the Patriot Viewpoint, which I'm actually doing a full review of this week and it'll come out this weekend. It uses edge enhancement. So it puts a high contrast colored line on the edge of all the hard edges in your field of view. So if you're looking for a door, it has this glowing, colorful outline around the door, and it helps to guide your eye, it helps draw your attention to that. Somewhere that's super helpful is stairs. If you don't have great contrast, you don't have great depth perception, you might not see the delineation of between the stairs, and putting this high contrast outline around it makes that edge stand out and could be very helpful.
Joeita Gupta:
Earlier when we were talking, you mentioned that you covered all the high-tech stuff, but you also suggest some DIY solutions, some things that everyone can do and it's not going to break the bank. Could you talk us through some of your DIY solutions as well?
Sam Seavey:
Yeah, so I make a lot of content for low vision because that's what I am. And so, one of the best tools we have nowadays is video magnification, desktop video magnifiers or CCTVs are very popular and have been for decades just because they work so well. It's the only way I made it through school growing up was a CCTV. But the downside is they can be several thousands of dollars and it's out of the reach for a lot of people financially. So I make videos about how can we use a simple smartphone? You've got an incredible camera, an incredible screen, incredible processing power right in your pocket, so how can we utilize that? Well, we can use a simple HDMI adapter that you can purchase on Amazon for like 10 bucks and plug the smartphone up to your television and get a simulated, and in many cases, very capable video magnification setup.
Joeita Gupta:
Oh, that's really savvy. When we talk about this issue, I'm often reminded of something called the digital divide. We're assuming that everybody has a smartphone, but not everybody does. Do you feel that as these technological solutions become more and more evident and more and more readily available, the gap between people who have ready access to technology including a smartphone and those who cannot for whatever reason access a smartphone, it could be because they live in a part of the world where it's prohibitively expensive to buy. It could be my 90-year-old mother-in-law who has macular degeneration and will just never learn to use a smartphone. Do you think that there are ways to address the widening gap if you think like me, that there is a growing and widening gap?
Sam Seavey:
Yes, absolutely. It's all about having options. Talking about seniors who maybe aren't the most tech-savvy, it's about having options that can accommodate their needs and their non-tech savviness. There are smartphones out there that are designed for seniors and that are fully accessible for visually impaired, for those that don't want a complicated smartphone. When it comes to other areas of the world that maybe don't have access to these things, we've got to have better programs set up through those local governments to provide these items for them, and not just provide the items, but provide high quality items.
Joeita Gupta:
And access to the internet. That's a big one too.
Sam Seavey:
Yeah, so it comes down to government and these programs need to be improved.
Joeita Gupta:
One of the grievances that I have is that a lot of the cutting-edge tech, and you've alluded to this already, is actually very expensive. I'm thinking about some of the smart glasses that can run you thousands of dollars. And right now, at least in Canada, there is no government support to cover it. In Canada for things like a laptop or for JAWS or for Kurzweil, you have a program that'll cover 75% of the cost of that screen reading software, but they haven't caught up to a reality where a smartphone is considered an assistive device or smart glasses are considered assistive devices. So what is your solution, if you have a solution, or what are your thoughts on addressing the financial barriers that many people have to realistically deal with if they want access to technology?
Sam Seavey:
Oh, man. This is one of the biggest topics in the AT world, and lowly old me is not going to be able to solve the problem, but I do recognize that it is a problem. And I don't know much about how things are in other countries, but in the US one way that would be extremely helpful is if insurance companies would cover these items. A lot of them, they don't see them as medical devices and so they don't cover them. Randomly, I hear unicorn stories of an insurance company footing the bill for one of these items, but it's very, very rare. So if that were a possibility, that would be amazing. That would make them much more accessible to a lot more people. But bottom line is, I don't know if as these things become more prevalent in our society. AT, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, didn't have the amazing assistive technology that we have today. And so as we get more devices and it becomes more common, hopefully, I hope, fingers crossed, the prices go down and it becomes more accessible to more people.
Joeita Gupta:
Yeah, that's what we saw with laptops and even ... Well, I wouldn't say with smartphones, but with laptops especially, the prices really went down, and notebooks, the prices just became a lot more affordable. One other question to ask you. I had a guest on here last fall who coined the term, "Techno ableism," and I'm going to simplify her definition to say that techno ableism is basically a belief that if you are a person with a disability, you must adopt technology as a way to fix or cure your disability. Do you buy that argument? As someone who's so invested in technology, do you think that there is a degree of pressure on people with disabilities, in our case, people who are blind or low vision, to adopt the latest technology that if someone turned around and said, "I don't want to use a smartphone, or I'd rather not learn JAWS. I prefer to do things using braille." That there would be a certain amount of pushback and a certain amount of, "But why aren't you using the latest tech?"
Sam Seavey:
So, no. Well, to some degree, yes, but I don't like the terms fix or cure, because that implies that there's something wrong with me and that I'm defective in some way. No, my eyes just don't work that great. That's literally it. It could be distilled down to just that. That doesn't mean I'm less. Saying that I need to be fixed implies that I'm less than something, and I don't like that. But being a technology instructor, being a tech person, I do believe that technology is the best way to level the playing field when it comes to disability. But at the same time, as I said, it's all about options. I work with seniors. I work in a nonprofit, I run an AT program, and most of my clients are seniors losing vision later in life. And I can tell right away that this person is never going to learn how to use an Android phone.
They're never going to learn how to use an iPhone. So I look to some of the accessible feature phone options that we have on the market. So I'm a big proponent of adapting the solution to the person and finding the best options for them. But I do agree that not using anything, just sitting in the house withering away is not the option. If braille is what you want to do, awesome, we can definitely work with that. If you want to learn JAWS, awesome, we can work with that. If you just want to listen to audiobooks and that's all you want to do, awesome. Well, let's take a look at some audiobook options. I'm not a fan of just being stagnant. I want to keep moving forward. So whatever that means for that person, we'll find a way.
Joeita Gupta:
Yeah, and one of the things that's interesting about braille, I wouldn't know for a fact, but with all the interesting braille displays that are out there, I would even be curious about whether braille is making something of a comeback because it's so much easier to get access to braille now as opposed to when you had to haul around like 10 volumes of Moby Dick with braille on both sides. So maybe we're even seeing a bit of a resurgence in braille. The one question that I am very curious about is with all the technology that you've encountered and all the conferences you've been to and all the people you've talked to, to what extent are blind and low vision people, innovators in the tech field? Because I think we don't want to give people the impression that we're just the recipients of tech that other people develop for us. I'd be curious to what extent people who are blind or low vision are actually creating the tech that we need.
Sam Seavey:
Well, it happens more often than people realize. I tell people all the time, "Do you like your Amazon Echo that will set timers for you and all that? Do you like driving mode on your phone where you can answer text messages with your voice and all that? Well, you're welcome because all of that, arguably ... Not the driving part, but all of that was arguably developed for the blind." Ray Kurzweil developed the first voice synthesizer because he wanted to help out blind people. And so all of these things that talk to us these days was a direct result of the disabled community. And so people don't realize how often that happens in our world.
Joeita Gupta:
One last question before I let you go. What is one piece of tech that has you very excited? It could be something that you're using right now or something that's in development.
Sam Seavey:
Well, like I said before, the adoption of AI and how that's going to help out us is probably the thing that's gotten me the most excited recently. Now they're throwing AI into everything. The brand new WeWALK Cane is going to have AI, and it's looking really pretty cool. I would love ... Back to the Apple Vision Pro. It's a fantastic headset with a lot of potential. It's terrible right now for the blind community. Spoiler, if you haven't watched my video, it's not good. Save your money. But it has the potential in the future to be amazing and groundbreaking and changing everything. So I'm excited to follow that technology.
Joeita Gupta:
That's amazing. Well, I'm holding out for the self-driving car, so there you go.
Sam Seavey:
Oh, yeah. That too.
Joeita Gupta:
That too. Sam, thank you very much for joining me on The Pulse. It was a pleasure chatting with you.
Sam Seavey:
Thank you so much.
Joeita Gupta:
There goes Sam Seavey, who is the creator and host of The Blind Life, which is found on YouTube, and as a podcast. Of course, you can go and check out Sam's YouTube channel. Really informative, lots of great info about tech. And that'll tide us over for the long weekend, whether you're celebrating Canada Day here in Canada, or if you are celebrating the 4th of July. That's all the time we have for today. If you have any comments, you can leave them down below. Don't forget to subscribe on YouTube and also subscribe to the podcast if that's how you've caught The Pulse. You are welcome to write me at feedbackataami.ca.
If you want to send an email, you can also give us a call at 1-866-509-4545. That's 1-866-509-4545. Don't forget to leave permission to play the audio on the program. You're also able to find us on X, formerly Twitter at AMI Audio. Use the hashtag #PulseAMI. You can also find me on X at Joeita Gupta. That's J-O-E-I-T-A and G-U-P-T-A, my first and last name combined. Find us on Facebook at Accessible Media Inc. So there's a couple of ways for you to reach out to us, and of course, you are welcome to comment down below. Jordan Steeves has been the technical producer along with Mark Aflalo. Ryan Delehanty is the coordinator for AMI Audio podcasts. Andy Frank is the manager for AMI Audio, and I've been your host Joeita Gupta. Thanks so much for listening.