So, I know generative AI is supposed to be just the most incorrect thing ever, but I want you to compare two descriptions. "A rock on a beach under a dark sky." And: The image shows a close-up view of a rocky, cratered surface, likely a planet or moon, with a small, irregularly shaped moon or asteroid in the foreground. The larger surface appears to be Mars, given its reddish-brown color and texture. The smaller object, which is gray and heavily cratered, is likely one of Mars' moons, possibly Phobos or Deimos. The background fades into the darkness of space. The first one is supposed to be the pure best thing that isn't AI. Right? Like, it's what we've been using for the past like 5 years. And yes, it's probably improved over those years. This is Apple's image description. It's, in my opinion, the best, most clear, and sounds like the ALT-text that it's made from, which people made BTW, and the images it was made with, which had to come from somewhere, were of very high quality, unlike Facebook and Google which just plopped anything and everything into theirs. The second was from Be My Eyes. Now, which one was more correct? Obviously, Be My Eyes. Granted, it's not always going to be, but goodness just because some image classification tech is old, doesn't mean it's better. And just because Google and Facebook call their image description bullshit AI, doesn't mean it's a large language model. Because at this point in time, Google TalkBack does not use Gemini, but uses the same thing VoiceOver has. And Facebook uses that too, just a classifier. Now, should sighted people be describing their pictures? Of course. Always. With care. And having their stupid bots use something better than "picture of cats." Because even a dumb image classifier can tell me that, and probably a bit more, lol. Cats sleeping on a blanket. Cats drinking water from a bowl. Stuff like that. But for something quick, easy, and that doesn't rely on other people, shoot yeah I'll put it through Be My Eyes. #accessibility#AI#LLM#BeMyEyes#blind
Just installed #archlinux on my computer. Stupidly forgot to install #brltty and #espeakup before rebooting though so now have no speech. Would any sighted person out there be willing to help me login, connect to the internet, and install what I need over a #videocall? It shouldn't take too long, and I don't want to boot from the #usb again. #BeMyEyes is great, but I'd prefer help from someone who knows #linux. #blind#tech#technology#arch
So I was craving a hot fudge sundae earlier. I grabbed the ice cream, put it in a bowl, I then went to the fridge and grabbed what I thought for sure was the chocolate sauce, I was so certain that I did not bother to grab my phone and use Be My Eyes. Unfortunately, to my horror, it was ketchup. I did not discover this until I went to put the ice cream in the microwave for 15 seconds just long enough to melt the chocolate sauce a little, I decided to take a taste before hand. And that is when I tasted my colossal mistake. I have never liked ketchup to begin with, but now it is personal with me and catch up! L O L.#BeMyEyes.
I can't contact #Microsoft's #Disability helpdesk on #BeMyEyes. so what's happening is, when i tap on contact microsoft, the new intigrated #BeMyAI tries to help. and then, there is a call Microsoft button there in case the AI is unable to help. when I tapped on that button, it is not connecting to Microsoft, it is connecting me to a regular sighted volunteer. #Blind#Blindness#Accessibility
Thank goodness for the #Microsoft Disabilidty Answer Desk available via #BeMyEyes.
My PC completely froze this morning. JAWS & Narrator completely silent. I couldn’t get anything to work. Eventually, I hit the Reset button. Big mistake. When I called for sighted assistance when the PC remained stubbornly silent, I learned it was configuring Windows updates. The PC restarted OK, but none of my MS apps would open. Word, Excel, Outlook all returned error messages.
The expert at MS took control when I called via Be My Eyes and did some magic. He got them all working again within 10 minutes. What a relief that was. #Accessibility
I can honestly say that #OpenAI has made my life better this year in a small, but significant way. 💖 I can ‘share’ any image on my iPhone to #BeMyEyes and almost instantly get a very detailed description back in seconds. 📱✨
It might not always be completely accurate, but believe me when I say it is the single biggest thing to help in 38 years of being blind! 🌟 #Accessibility#AI#AISoftheBlind#Blind#ComputerVision#Disability#GPT4#Innovation#MachineLearning
I just had my first ever Be My Eyes call this morning.
What a feel-good way to start the day, helping someone who is visually impaired (to book a flight, in this case)! I feel as if I made a friend.
I have had the app for years but missed calls in the early days (didn't recognize the ring tone) , then changed phones and forgot to get signed in on it. So I'm up and running again now.
Got more people named in pictures I’ve described through #BeMyEyes and that makes me happy.
Sleep well and may your dreams take you to the stars. 🤗🫶❤️🫂
I got my first call from someone on the Be My Eyes app that lets the sighted step up for blind & low-vision people today.
I’m a late adopter, having only heard about it this week. You register, & when time permits, you can answer video calls placed by blind app users asking for help seeing, reading, selecting things.
Thanks to the founder, a Danish visually impaired guy himself, for having the idea and going with it; & the people working there now.
It’s not often that a crowdsourcing app lives up to every hope the internet allowed us to cling to. Silicon Valley social media owners talk a lot about ‘bringing people closer together’.
Welp, here we go. Be My Eyes is so great, people are just... Calling their projects Be My Eyes web apps now. Cause it's 2023 and here we are. No, I haven't tried this thing. I hope it's worth the absolute shitstorm of a hype train this will cause in the blind community once people get to looking at it.
On the way home from #Westfield shopping center with my kids yesterday, we sat on the top-deck of the bus right at the front. I thought I’d take a picture out of the front window and compare the difference in information between #SeeingAI and #BeMyEyes.
Both descriptions can be found in the #AltText, as they’re too long to fit here.
I’ll be curious to know which you prefer (if any?)
All the love to #BeMyEyes and the #Microsoft disability help desk for helping me discover why my F-row keys weren't functioning properly, and restoring Narrator when I muted everything by accident. Managed to get NVDA and some other essentials installed and made headway on uninstalling all the crap, though friggin Macafee refuses to leave for some reason. Getting some sleep so I'll be fresh for work and more configuring tomorrow.
I don't really have anything for Be My AI to take a picture of, so I just took its description of one of @Swede1952's pictures and verified it against Swede's alt text. Swede is sighted, an experienced photographer and very good at writing alt text, so I feel he's a reliable source to check against.
Be My AI's description was very detailed and matched Swede's description almost perfectly. Although, I wouldn't call a bird fight 'beautiful' lol.
I'll attach the picture in this post for reference, with the Be My AI description in the alt text. #BeMyAI#BeMyEyes
After having the app for years, I actually got my first "be my eyes" call and was able to help someone out by reading some info for them. Neat! #bemyeyes#bemyeyesapp
So I read something interesting today on the Be My Eyes blog. They are partnering with an organization, called the Lego group, which will begin providing video assistance to blind and visually impaired persons, who are interested in building, Lego sets, and they will help them with the young boxing of Lego sets they have just purchased. I think this is really cool! It makes me want to get back into playing with Legos even though I haven’t done that since I was a kid. #BeMyEyes#Lego.
Just used the Be My AI to take a picture of the back of the bottle of some special cleaner. I asked, instructions? And it came back and told me just the instructions from the back of the bottle. A very helpful tool indeed! 😄 #BeMyAI#Helpful#Blind#BeMyEyes
This is a weird request, but I figure the worst I can get for it is silence. I'm totally #blind and have very bad hearing. To set up a device through its inaccessible software, I'm in need of a sighted person for about an hour and a half to two hours who can access a computer remotely, speaks and reads English, and can describe images and graphs. The person needs to be quite patient with follow-up questions, needs to be willing to repeat if needed, as well as be able to click on items and describe what happens on the screen. The person needs to be fairly detail oriented because some of the images appear to have arrows and other ways to expand them, according to the manual. Though I'm happy to be reasonable, I have no clue how much to offer as payment, this is my first request of this kind. I'm posting it because I know we have some blind people here who may be able to point me towards someone who has done this before and may be willing to do it for such a short period. Boosts welcome, indeed, they're appreciated. #hearingimpaired#software#A11Y#accessibility#remote
#BeMyEyes! It's a free app you can download and is for this kind of situation. (I'm a volunteer.)
Usually it is for something quick (reading a tin label, confirming a temperature, etc.), but I've helped people for up to 45 minutes at a time (all I could spare).
There is no charge; it's just one person helping another.
There is a contact form on the website for specialised help & I'm including the link here.
@weirdwriter@nona80_swanette That's true, but it's worth noting that you can use the camera to read the computer screen. I've used it to read UEFI screens in the past, for things like "what choice is my cursor on", it's lovely so long as you can hear the volunteer easily and hold the phone in a good spot. The volunteer will usually be able to help you with that last. #BeMyEyes