AI in AAC systems: current work and future research priorities

Description

At CM2023 the UoD team facilitated a Workshop: Towards a code of practice to support the positive use of AI (artificial intelligence) in AAC. We will provide a summary of our findings from the workshop. This session will offer delegates an overview of the state of current work around the use of AI in AAC systems. This will include how such systems are leveraging the opportunity afforded by LLMs (large language models) and allied systems (Yang & Kristensson, 2023). The team will provide a summary of existing literature and current research in this field, contextualised through a discussion of how legislation, regulation and legal precedent are impacting the development, implementation and risk management of such systems. The team at Dundee have a long-standing research and development interest in the use of language models to improve communication, particularly through rate enhancement and the generation of personalised conversational narratives or stories that promote social acceptance, social closeness and personality projection (Waller, 2019). AI has the ability to greatly accelerate this, however there are inherent risks of simply plugging these technologies into existing AAC systems without considering factors such as the user’s understanding and acceptance and inherent bias. There are potential solutions to these risks such as the inclusion of safety features (often called guardrails), user explainable AI systems and a modular design for systems that include AI, where the ‘engine’ may be swapped out should that system be deprecated, degraded or discontinued, due to developing case law, legislation or regulation. The session will include a demonstration of an existing bespoke AAC system that supports rate and narrative enhancement for literate keyboard users. We plan to use this as the basis for discussion around how future AAC systems might be developed to capitalise on the opportunities presented by LLMs and allied technologies.

Period	10 Sept 2024
Event title	Communication Matters International AAC Conference 2024
Event type	Conference
Location	Leeds, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International