222
Mozilla Firefox new alt-text generator powered by "fully private on-device AI model"
(hacks.mozilla.org)
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
I don't think they're likely to do a better job than humans any time soon. We can hope that it won't be extremely misleading too often.
I dunno, I suspect most human alt texts to be vague and non descriptive. I'm sure a human trying their hardest could out write an AI alt text.. But I'd be pretty shocked if AI's weren't already better than the average alt text.
Alt text: It's for SEO, isn't it?
Sure, assuming the human is actually putting effort into the task. But we know that able-bodied society is generally, at best, dismissive of the needs of the disabled and, at worst, discriminatory. I very much doubt that the majority of fully sighted humans working in this area are taking the time required to view the problem from the point of view of the visually-impaired minority and then putting in the effort required to deliver the best possible solution for them. Not every website is run by some massive company with employees specifically dedicated to this task. For many it will be an afterthought, and that's where AI descriptions will shit all over the lazy human ones. Additionally, alt text contributes to SEO which means many will be tailoring it to their search ranking instead of the needs of the user.