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Main Author: De Meulder, Maartje
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02519
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author De Meulder, Maartje
author_facet De Meulder, Maartje
contents This paper explores the interplay of AI language technologies, sign language interpreting, and linguistic access, highlighting the complex interdependencies shaping access frameworks and the tradeoffs these technologies bring. While AI tools promise innovation, they also perpetuate biases, reinforce technoableism, and deepen inequalities through systemic and design flaws. The historical and contemporary privileging of sign language interpreting as the dominant access model, and the broader inclusion ideologies it reflects, shape AIs development and deployment, often sidelining deaf languaging practices and introducing new forms of linguistic subordination to technology. Drawing on Deaf Studies, Sign Language Interpreting Studies, and crip technoscience, this paper critiques the framing of AI as a substitute for interpreters and examines its implications for access hierarchies. It calls for deaf-led approaches to foster AI systems that remain equitable, inclusive, and trustworthy, supporting rather than undermining linguistic autonomy and contributing to deaf aligned futures.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_02519
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deaf in AI: AI language technologies and the erosion of linguistic rights
De Meulder, Maartje
Computers and Society
This paper explores the interplay of AI language technologies, sign language interpreting, and linguistic access, highlighting the complex interdependencies shaping access frameworks and the tradeoffs these technologies bring. While AI tools promise innovation, they also perpetuate biases, reinforce technoableism, and deepen inequalities through systemic and design flaws. The historical and contemporary privileging of sign language interpreting as the dominant access model, and the broader inclusion ideologies it reflects, shape AIs development and deployment, often sidelining deaf languaging practices and introducing new forms of linguistic subordination to technology. Drawing on Deaf Studies, Sign Language Interpreting Studies, and crip technoscience, this paper critiques the framing of AI as a substitute for interpreters and examines its implications for access hierarchies. It calls for deaf-led approaches to foster AI systems that remain equitable, inclusive, and trustworthy, supporting rather than undermining linguistic autonomy and contributing to deaf aligned futures.
title Deaf in AI: AI language technologies and the erosion of linguistic rights
topic Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02519