9/24/26 - Deaf rights, unwanted inventions, and the real and present dangers of AI
Hi there!
How has your week been so far? Tomorrow's newsletter will as usual feature a video of some kind, possibly kind of fun. But, stay tuned also for Monday's edition, which will probably be dominated by some fairly bad disability rights news. In the meantime, here are today's three disability-related links ...
#IWDeaf: Declaring Deaf People’s Human Rights
Laura Wissiak, A11y News - Accessibility in Tech, UX and IRL - September 21, 2026
"The last week of September is the International Week of Deaf People. Last year’s theme was ‘No Human Rights Without Sign Language Rights’, this year it’s: ‘Declaring Deaf People’s Human Rights’”
Anyone can declare a [something] day or week. And it's an especially tempting way to raise awareness of specific types of disability. It works, up to a point. but too often, these disability-specific days and weeks end up just more marks cluttering up a calendar, and sometimes worse – a joke to non-disabled people too cynical or ableist to do more than roll eyes and snicker. But this looks like a really well-organized and useful lineup of ideas and activities that can make the International Week of Deaf People something meaningful. There's something to it. I hope it's not too late to link to it here on Thursday, with the week almost over.
Nobody Asked for a Crab Chair
Ian Ruder, New Mobility - September 21, 2026
"My concern, and the thing that saps any enthusiasm the sleek design might inspire in me, is that much like more traditional inspiration porn harms the disabled community by propagating false narratives and not doing justice to real experiences of disabled people, this engineering version of inspiration porn neglects to address the design problems most critical to our community while pulling away obviously-talented designers and chair-loads of cash that could have been focused on solving them."
It's good to see more critical attention on inventions and adaptive products that are touted as game-changers for disabled people, but are actually close to useless and good only to impress the incredulous gawkers. And I like Ruder's approach here. He acknowledges that some kind of good intentions are usually involved, but reminds us that most of what disabled people need isn't that complex or tech-heavy. And tech-heavy solutions rarely reach us anyway, or make any difference in our lives.
Why AI Regulation Will Fail Without Disabled Oracles
Tina Argetsinger, The Disability Perspective - September 22, 2026
"While policymakers and commentators obsess over speculative extinctions and rogue agent swarms colluding across digital sandboxes, disabled people are already bleeding from the actual machinery. The danger isn’t an autonomous robot army arriving in 2040; it is the quiet, automated administrative violence deployed across public systems this morning."
This is a much more complete and up to date overview of the handful of specific, empowering uses, and the many dangers and damages of AI for disabled people. I don't have much more to add, except to urge everyone to read the whole piece – and to link back to my own previous essay on AI. I suspect that we will be revisiting topics like this a lot in the near future.
Disability Thinking Weekday is a Monday-Friday newsletter with links and commentary on disability-related articles and other content. You can help promote Disability Thinking Weekday by forwarding it by email or posting on your social media. You can also comment by sending me an email at: apulrang@icloud.com. Collected comments are shared on the first of each month. A free subscription sends a newsletter to your email each weekday. Benefits of paid subscription include:
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