How Far I'll Go: Imagining Futures of Conversational AI with People with Visual Impairments Through Design Fiction

2025-10-14

AI Summary

This study investigates how people with visual impairments (PVI) imagine, anticipate, and express concerns regarding the integration of conversational AI (CAI) into their future lives—particularly concerning CAI’s potential to expand lived spaces, reconcile dependence with autonomy, accommodate heterogeneous vision loss profiles, and enhance social visibility and inclusion. Method: Employing an innovative audio-based design fiction approach, the research combines semi-structured interviews and participatory human–AI interaction studies, enabling user-led narrative generation to surface underlying value tensions. Contribution/Results: Findings reveal that PVI envision CAI as an enabler for novel spatial exploration and opportunity access, yet emphatically prioritize authentic agency over technological substitution. Participants advocate for granular, impairment-aware design and counter-stereotypical social representation. The study advances inclusive AI design by centering disability epistemic authority, yielding both theoretical insights and actionable frameworks grounded in disabled people’s lived subjectivity.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Computer Vision: Bias, Fairness & Privacy
• Intelligent Robots: Embodied AI

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Vertical and domain-specific search

Abstract

People with visual impairments (PVI) use a variety of assistive technologies to navigate their daily lives, and conversational AI (CAI) tools are a growing part of this toolset. Much existing HCI research has focused on the technical capabilities of current CAI tools, but in this paper, we instead examine how PVI themselves envision potential futures for living with CAI. We conducted a study with 14 participants with visual impairments using an audio-based Design Fiction probe featuring speculative dialogues between participants and a future CAI. Participants imagined using CAI to expand their boundaries by exploring new opportunities or places, but also voiced concerns about balancing reliance on CAI with maintaining autonomy, the need to consider diverse levels of vision-loss, and enhancing visibility of PVI for greater inclusion. We discuss implications for designing CAI that support genuine agency for PVI based on the future lives they envisioned.

Problem

• Exploring how visually impaired individuals envision future conversational AI interactions
• Addressing concerns about balancing AI reliance with personal autonomy
• Designing inclusive AI systems based on user-imagined future scenarios

Innovation

• Used audio-based Design Fiction probe
• Collected speculative dialogues with participants
• Explored future CAI for visual impairment support