Seeing AI is a app developed by Microsoft which uses artificial intelligence to describe photos. Recently, an update has allow the app to differentiate everyday contents and adul contents. Connor Scott-Gardner has written about his experience with the app while accessing adult contect. In his words:
When I took my bra off, getting descriptions was a little harder. At first, I was only able to generate “possible adult content, photo of an adult.” I took photos of myself from different angles and with varied lighting, receiving a description of “possible adult content, photo of a naked person.” I only took photos of the top half of my body, so I don’t know how it would handle entire naked pictures, or whether specific body parts would be identified. I also didn’t upload these photos to Seeing AI to compare descriptions because the app requires an internet connection and to upload photos to the cloud, something I was not comfortable doing.
The fact that we’re getting this level of description, explicitly identifying naked bodies, is extremely important. Historically blind people have been denied access to information which is deemed to be of an adult nature. When technology is developed, content filters are applied with no way of removing them. Effectively, tech companies have decided what blind people should be allowed to know. Apple have chosen not to do this, by building this feature into their devices and enabling us to control whether we view descriptions of adult content they have made a statement regarding our right to information.