Concerning image descriptions, "better than nothing" is a thing of the past
Mastodon is increasingly moving from #NoAltTextNoBoost to #CrappyAltTextNoBoost, and I can see it move further to #NotEnoughAltTextNoBoost.
It is moving from only ostracising people for not providing image descriptions past ostracising people for providing useless image descriptions towards ostracising people for providing AI-generated image descriptions because they're at least partially wrong. The next victims may be people whose image descriptions leave out elements in the image which others may deem necessary to describe.
As quality requirements for image descriptions are being raised, I can't possibly lower the quality of my own image descriptions. If anything, I'll continue to upgrade my own image descriptions to stay ahead.
This is also why I'm worried about moving the long descriptions from the post text body into linked external documents. Not having certain descriptions and any explanations anywhere in the post anymore may backfire, and the external documents themselves may not be accessible and inclusive after all.
Interestingly, this is not congruent with what I read from actually non-sighted people. They don't even seem to care for accuracy which they can't verify anyway as long as the image description is funny and/or whimsical. Since it seems to be exactly that what AI delivers, it's no wonder that many blind people prefer image descriptions from BeMyAI over image descriptions from human experts.
I think I'll keep on writing my monster descriptions, two for each original image. If any of you who aren't sighted don't like them for not being whimsical enough, feel free to ignore the hours or days of work I've put into them, fire up your AI and have your own image description generated.
@accessibility group @a11y group
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Mastodon #MastodonPolice #FediPolice #AltText #AltTextMeta #CWAltTextMeta #ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #Blind #VisuallyImpaired #A11y #Accessibility #AI #AIVsHuman #HumanVsAI
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eshep
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Jupiter Rowland
in reply to eshep • • •@eshep Maybe not you. But I can't exclude others doing so if image description standards develop the way they do.
Sure, they'll be a tiny minority. But so are blind users.
#ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta