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Kuwait described the use of artificial intelligence to support people with visual impairments as a game-changer in empowering them to live independently and actively participate in daily life, work, and education.
This was stated by the Director of the centre for the Disabled at the Kuwait Lawyers Association Dr. Hanadi Al-Omani late Wednesday evening during a roundtable titled "Leaving No One Behind: Using AI to Support Inclusion and Promote Participation of People with Disabilities," held as part of the 18th Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (COSP18).
She acknowledged concerns about data misuse and privacy, yet she stressed that AI offers greater benefits for independence, learning, and employment.
Text-to-speech, enhanced Braille, and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant let users send messages, make calls, set reminders, and request information hands-free, she mentioned.
Screen-reader software now makes websites fully navigable for study, training, and research, she said.
AI tools enable efficient remote work, reducing the need for commuting and widening job opportunities, she added.
Navigation apps use sound and vibration to guide blind or low-vision users around obstacles, she explained.
Microsoft's Seeing AI app identifies people, objects, text, and even facial expressions, she continued.
Al-Omani urged developers and governments to build inclusive, bias-free systems that support all languages.
She called for guarantees of user privacy and for technical training to eliminate digital illiteracy.
AI, she concluded, is a powerful enabler for full social integration.
Its success depends on designs co-created with people with disabilities, who best understand their own needs.
She closed by recounting her journey as the first blind lawyer licensed in Kuwait and the Middle East, and as the first blind director of a special needs centre in the Arab world.
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