How AI can bridge the Deaf and hearing worlds | Adam Munder

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Communication advocate Adam Munder is deaf, so his experience of the world, and even this very TED Talk, is aided by interpreters. There's a scarcity, however, of interpreters everywhere, and it limits communication options for the deaf and hard of hearing. In his 2024 talk, he introduces one promising AI tool that can not only help us better communicate, but better connect, too. Adam gave the talk in American Sign Language. The voice you're hearing is his interpreter, Chris Hansen.

0:46They are coming up.

0:50Adam, wait. They need an interpreter. Now I'm ready. Go ahead. Oh, you guys need an interpreter. Thank you for briefly experiencing what it's like for me and millions of other deaf people worldwide when we don't have an interpreter and we need to order a coffee, check into a hotel, or complete other daily tasks. What I was trying to share with you was a frustrating experience that my wife and I recently had. My wife is also deaf, and we took our daughter to a doctor's appointment. When we arrived, I'd asked for either an on-site or a virtual interpreter. Unfortunately, they told me neither were available.

1:36So I had to write back and forth with the receptionist at the front desk. To make matters worse, when the doctor came into the room, he said, oh, it's all right. We'll just have your daughter interpret for you. So could you imagine going to the doctor's appointment and being told by the doctor that your seven-year-old is going to relay the information to you? This was just one example of the two different worlds that I navigate. In my personal life, I raise my kids, I manage rental properties, I flip buildings, and I'm working on a coffee roastery. In this world, I interact with hearing individuals every day.

2:19Teachers, lawyers, real estate agents, contractors. Yet still to this day, I have to rely on a smartphone to text back and forth or write with paper and pen to the people I interact with. Then I have the professional world, where I've succeeded in part due to having two highly qualified interpreters. I have the same degrees, the same educational background, the same job responsibilities as my hearing peers. I solve the same engineering problems in a very competitive, fast-paced environment. But the playing field isn't level. And all of my daily collaborations, all of my meetings and presentations, everything hinges on my interpreters.

3:07I am very fortunate, though. My employer ensures that I have access to the same information that my hearing colleagues do. Unfortunately, this is not true for many deaf throughout the world. Interpreters are very expensive and scarce. Where I live in Arizona, there are more than 1.1 million individuals with a hearing loss and only about 400 licensed interpreters. So there's scarcity of tools available for us, and our communication options are very limited. This puts us in a survival mode, forcing us to use the resources that are at our disposal. Writing back and forth on paper and pen or using a smartphone to text is not equivalent to American Sign Language.

4:01The details and nuance that make us human are lost in both our personal and business conversations. So we're bringing the humanity back to these conversations. I've done that by building a platform called Omnibridge. So my team has established this bridge between the deaf world and the hearing world, bringing these worlds together without forcing one to adapt to the other. So we're using the power of AI to analyze thousands of signs in ASL and translate them into English. Now, thousands may seem small, but ASL is very complex. With slight nuance and changes in body language, it can change the meaning of a sign.

4:45Today, with the advancement in compute on AI PCs, we're able to run our models locally without relying on the internet, which dramatically increases accessibility. With this, there's much less confusion and frustration. So we're changing the world through the power of AI, not just revolutionizing technology, but enhancing that human connection. My team is focused on using the AI PC and the power of AI to humanize and include, to really, truly level the playing field. It's two languages, signed and spoken, and one seamless conversation. Thank you. Thank you.

5:34That was Adam Munder at TED Next 2024. This talk was made in partnership with Intel. If you're curious about TED's curation, find out more at ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Autumn Thompson, and Alejandra Salazar. It was mixed by Christopher Faze Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Balarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feet. Thanks for listening.