PeopleLens

The PeopleLens is an open-ended AI system that offers people who are blind or who have low vision further resources to make sense of and engage with their immediate social surroundings. It has been used most recently by children who are blind in school settings, supporting their skills in proactively interacting with classmates. The PeopleLens is an exploration in how we can design human-AI interaction that moves beyond discrete task support to provide a continuous stream of dynamic information. It was inspired by ethnographic research with Paralympic athletes and spectators, research that captured the diverse sense-making skills that people with low vision use to orientate to and interact with others. The PeopleLens was imagined as a way of amplifying the details in people’s surroundings, enabling them to extend their existing skills and capabilities.