An Autonomous Drone-Controlled Wheelchair? No Thanks.

Is this the best thing about our brightest minds?

The question came to mind while reading An article About a Swiss project to build an autonomous wheelchair assisted by drones with integrated artificial intelligence. While each of those technological fashion words transmits a certain degree of freshness on their own, together they make sense. Wheels are already conspicuous enough, now you want to add a constantly buzzing and floating drone on top? Unless you can shoot some type of crowd control to bawking spectators, no thanks.

If the researchers and engineers behind the assisted drone chair for autonomous driving had spoken with anyone who has used an electric wheelchair, they would have learned this. On the other hand, what we have left is another poorly conceived example of what happens when they do not listen to people who are supposedly trying to help.

The best evidence of how these people are out of contact? His own words. The head of the Swiss research team behind the president of Saad offers it as a «visionary and disruptive project» that «will allow people with physical and sensory disabilities to move independently, without being carried as objects.»

First, there is nothing visionary or disruptive in this project, unless the drone counts as disruptive in a purely literal sense. Much more competent and connected engineers have been experiencing with autonomous design and AI for years. Luci mobility He has been selling a complement for four years that he uses sensors to prevent his chair from ranking with the walls or curbs. Dr. Rory Cooper and his team in Human Engineering Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh have been using Lido, laser -based remote sensors, and sensors to make a smarter chair, and others have shown how the routing of AI can empower wheelchairs users.

Second, the fact that this engineer thinks that we see ourselves as «being carried as objects» betray how completely out of contact is. I have listened to other wheelchair users to express a wide range of opinions about their relationships with their chairs, from love: «My chair completes me and allows me to live life as I want,» I hate: «I hope I would never see that piece of garbage again.» What I have never heard is that a wheelchair user describes his chair as a foreign entity that transports them without their control.

The «objects taken as» are the words of someone who has not made any effort to understand wheelchair users or our complex relationships with the technology we trust. For more evidence of this, you do not need to look beyond the terrible rendering of Saad AI they approved.

I am sure that some readers will disagree with criticizing engineers and researchers trying to help our community. If these problematic examples were few and distant, perhaps I would agree, but the frequency with which They continue to appear He suggests that disconnection between our two communities remains substantial. Do not be misunderstood, I want these great minds to remain focused on us, but in valuable solutions, not contact without contact.

For now, I will keep my wheelchair without drones.