AI’s Impending War on Disability – Inside Sources

First, it came for the data.

From planning vacations and tailoring job applications to navigating roadways and tracking Americans’ daily movement and health patterns, AI has become integrated into 99 percent of Americans’ lives, and yet two-thirds don’t even realize it.

With all that information, it needed more room, so it started after the land.

Surpassing apartment buildings and retail space in the real estate market, data centers account for 27 percent of the nation’s development this year, with land purchases up 79 percent from last year.

Even with all that land, no one seems to be asking whose life is on the other end.

With only 11 percent of Americans in support of constructing data centers, 42 percent live near one that is in operation or planned to be built, facing the brunt of the health and environmental risks these centers create. From noise, light and air pollution to water waste and externalized utility costs, data centers will be disabling the U.S. population at a rate greater than the nation is supporting its disabled citizens. With a projected increase of 600,000 cases of asthma symptoms and 1,300 premature deaths by 2028, the continued push for data center development launched by the AI frontier is expected to result in serious health implications, including increases in cancers and neurological disorders, accompanied by a reduction in fertility rates.

Why worry about this when it has already taken over jobs?

While the idea that AI has contributed to rampant unemployment and massive layoffs isn’t entirely true, what is irrefutable is the potential costs of AI on jobs for people with disabilities.

Already, when the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is double the rate for those without, AI holds the capacity to improve workplace access through advantages delivered by assistive technologies; however, AI systems that have been trained using historical hiring practices end up closing more doors for people with disabilities as a result of replicated biases. Virtual interview tools may make hiring easier for employers, but they may discriminate against candidates with non-standardized speech, facial differences, hearing loss or other disabilities because of their rigid measurement scales. Even after employees with disabilities have made it through the door, jobs that are more physically intensive or repetitive, which people with disabilities frequently occupy, are found to be automated at higher rates.

Why stop there? Why not the next generation?

As AI algorithms become increasingly integrated into maternal healthcare, advances in fetal ultrasound imaging and prenatal testing like those done by BIOTICSai hold the potential for increases in selective abortion.

Reflecting the deep connection between eugenics and computing, Francis Galton, considered the founder of the eugenics movement, was a renowned statistician; however, his work has not been left to the past. Already in Iceland and Denmark, where prenatal screening and selective abortion are highly prevalent, only two to three children with Down syndrome are born each year.

Today, in the United States, 80 percent of physicians have integrated AI into their work, so the question is not whether people with disabilities will be screened out of the equation but how many more will be before some type of regulation is adopted.

We welcomed it into our homes, our phones, our schools and our workplaces. It learned our voices, habits and searches. Together, we have fallen victim to a narrative that claims artificial intelligence is the key to solving life’s dilemmas.

While AI has indeed supported many people with disabilities, from image narration tools to transcription, AI-powered wheelchairs, and even robotic guide dogs, technological advancements cannot be celebrated without ignoring a darker reality. A darker reality in which tech CEOs and members of Congress alike are neglecting to acknowledge in their debate over AI guardrails: that is, the same technologies that can help transform lives and build new avenues for independence are quietly reshaping whose land gets stomped on, who gets hired, who is worthy of being born, and ultimately whose lives society values.

Now is not the time to get sucked into another chatbot conversation, but the time to call for global regulation.