A Guide Dog for the Face-Blind
15 days ago
- #AI-assistance
- #sensory-impairments
- #prosopagnosia
- The author shares their personal experience with prosopagnosia (face blindness), a condition that makes it difficult to recognize faces.
- Prosopagnosia exists on a spectrum, with some people being more severely affected than others. People with this condition often rely on other features like hairstyle, glasses, or voice to recognize others.
- Cognitive overload is a common issue, not just for prosopagnosics but for everyone, especially in situations with many similar-looking individuals (e.g., movies or large social gatherings).
- Prosopagnosics fear not recognizing someone who recognizes them, leading to awkward or embarrassing situations.
- Super-recognizers, who have an exceptional ability to remember faces, are at the opposite end of the spectrum from prosopagnosics.
- The author suggests the need for personal-intelligence apps to assist people with sensory impairments, such as biometric recognition (photos, voice samples) and relationship tracking in a knowledge graph.
- Other sensory impairments, like color blindness, autism (difficulty recognizing emotions), and dromosagnosia (spatial disorientation), could also benefit from AI assistance.
- Projects like Positron from ASIMOV Protocol aim to provide discreet, respectful tools to augment human memory and recognition without intrusion.