Be My Eyes Announces Collaboration with Meta to Help Train Inclusive AI Models

Be My Eyes (bemyeyes.com), the company that connects people who are blind or have low vision with sighted volunteers and companies through live video and AI, announced today that it is working with Meta to make AI models more inclusive for the over 340 million people around the world who are blind or have low vision. By expanding and improving Meta’s training data to include BME’s data, AI can better serve diverse user needs , making technology more usable and beneficial for everyone. This is Be My Eyes’ third collaboration on accessible AI models, following our pioneering work with OpenAI to bring blind and low vision beta testers to the original GPT4, and working with Microsoft on more inclusive data for AI model training. Our work with Meta builds on our previously announced accessibility partnership and their groundbreaking Meta AI glasses.

In July 2024, we publicly highlighted the concern that people who are blind or have low vision were being left out from the development of AI models and announced our intention to make Be My Eyes’ proprietary data sets available to help train models in a more inclusive manner. Publicly available datasets used to train AI models often lack accessibility context and can fail to reflect the lived experience of people who are blind or have low vision. And the reality is that disability continues to be underrepresented or incorrectly accounted for in datasets used to train AI, which can limit the utility of the technology or even magnify bias. That disability data desert risks an AI-prevalent future of inherent bias and inaccessibility that repeats the mistakes made during the evolution of the internet, but with the potential impact being even more significant.

Our partnership with Meta and their embrace of our accessibility data set is another big step toward solving that problem. As Be My Eyes Founder Hans Jørgen Wiberg, has noted, “We believe there is a moral imperative to ensure AI models not only account for blindness and blind people but do so in a way that is consistent with our actual experiences, capabilities, and power. Our premise is simple: Our mission is to make the world more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision and that must include shaping the future of AI.”

Be My Eyes will provide multimodal video data collected through its platform to Meta for its AI model training. We will not provide any other data (such as images or responses from Be My AI). This data represents the lived experience of the blind and low vision community and the volunteers who support them.  It will be used to make Meta’s AI glasses and its technology even more accessible to people who are blind or have low vision,  as well as helping models perform better on a number of general tasks. As we previously committed, Be My Eyes will remove all user, account, and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from meta data. There are also strict provisions in place that prohibit the data being used for marketing or profiling, and as always, anyone using our services can opt out of allowing their videos to be used for training, while maintaining full access to all of our app functionality.

“Meta changed the game for blind and low vision consumers with the launch of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses,” said Mike Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes. “The next phase of our partnership seeks to create even more accessible AI, increasing the power and utility of the technology for our community, and we’re proud to continue building a more accessible future with Meta.”

“Whether it’s state of the art wearables with AI, or working to build models that are more inclusive of diverse populations, we intend to continue pioneering technologies and approaches that bring value to all of our global users. Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing accessibility for millions of people,” said Maxine Williams, Meta’s VP of Accessibility. 

To learn more about Be My Eyes data privacy policy, its announcement to make video data available to train more inclusive AI models, and details of how to opt-out please visit: https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/be-my-eyes-launches-initiative-to-make-ai-models-more-inclusive