Press This: Can AI Make The Web More Accessible?

Welcome to Press This, the WordPress community podcast from WMR. Each episode features guests from around the community and discussions of the largest issues facing WordPress developers. The following is a transcription of the original recording. Powered by RedCircle Doc Pop: You’re listening to Press This, a WordPress community podcast on WMR. Each week we spotlight members of the WordPress community. I’m your host, Doc Pop. I support the WordPress community through my role at WP Engine and my contributions on TorqueMag.io. You can subscribe to Press This on RedCircle , iTunes , Spotify , or your favorite podcasting app.You can also download episodes directly from WMR.fm . Today we’re diving deep into a topic that’s not only cutting edge, but also crucial for making the web more inclusive: AI and accessibility and how those two things can work together. I’m thrilled today to be joined by Amber Hines, the CEO of Equalize Digital , who recently impressed our audiences with her keynote at DE{CODE} 2024 on the potential of AI and making websites more accessible. In today’s conversation, Amber and I will be exploring those promises and perils and how you can leverage generative AI, large language models, and everything else to enhance accessibility on WordPress websites. Amber, thank you so much for joining us today. Amber Hinds: Yeah, thanks for having me. Doc Pop: Let’s start this off with that DE{CODE} talk that happened last week as we’re recording. And I got a chance to watch the whole thing. I really enjoyed it. I’m just wondering if you can kind of summarize: what is DE{CODE} and what was your talk there? Amber Hinds: Yeah, so DE{CODE} is of course WP Engine’s developer-focused conference, which is one of the few WordPress conferences that’s fully focused on developers, which is neat. And I gave almost like a five-minute lightning talk as part of the keynote presentation, which the whole of was about AI. And of course, me being an accessibility advocate, I spoke about AI’s impact on accessibility, good and bad. Doc Pop: Yeah, and before large language models and generative AI were the hot new thing, there were many tools out there that claimed to easily fix accessibility issues and, in particular in the WordPress space, there was a lot of accessibility overlays or all sorts of tools that claimed to be quick fixes-just download this plugin and you’re all good. And those were criticized often for not really fixing issues, for just giving the website owners the feeling that maybe they had done something, but not actually fixing things for users. Is AI likely to be the same, or is this going to be different for us? Amber Hinds: Yeah, so I mean those, the accessibility overlays, you know, I think we almost talked about they’re criticized in the current tense, right? They are currently criticized because they make a lot of really bold claims. And the biggest challenge about accessibility is that not every problem can be...

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