Artificial intelligence and rights of people with disabilities: The power of algorithms

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized our lives and will continue to transform them dramatically for the decades to come. Its potential is indisputable and its applications can bring important benefits to people with disabilities. However, AI is a clearly ambivalent reality and, along with its positive aspects, it also presents downsides that come with various fundamental risks, many of an ethical nature, capable of creating new types of discrimination that curtail the rights of such groups, always in constant vindication, especially in the face of new realities. This paper will review in a generic sense the advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence in relation to people with disabilities, with a specific focus on algorithmic biases, a key element with a recognized capability to organize the society and influence policies and institutions through autonomous decision-making, based on a behaviour that may be unfair and discriminatory. Finally, we will present some possible solutions that tend to shape this still incipient phenomenon so it develops in service of every kind of people, including those who present any type of disabilit