Guest Author - Kyle Ford

Today, I stumbled across something I felt was creepy that Facebook has been doing. A photo I posted to a photography group was not loading, but the alt text was showing. It wasn't empty, and it was very accurate. Facebook managed to use AI to add alt text information to my photo automatically. While initially I was creeped out, I wanted to know why. We have been told by SEO experts to add alt text to our images for ages, but it's a bit of a chore, so most of us don't do it. Because of this, most of the internet is unusable to a blind individual.

Facebook is trying to improve the usability of it's platform for the blind. Much like the amazing feat of adding Snapchat filters to your face on the fly, you can also teach a machine to see other things in images. This alt text can be coupled with your devices voice over feature to describe the photographs as it makes it's way down the page. I did some digging, and The Verge covered this when the feature launched. Head over there for a more in-depth look at the tech that makes it possible. Check out the article here.

Models: John Schell and Olive Schell