Meta's AI glasses could mean more independence for the blind community

Emeline Lakrout, a busy New Yorker with a knack for running, rock climbing and swimming, doesn't let being legally blind stop her from living an active lifestyle. 

Despite being declared blind at 8 years old, Lakrout has taken on challenges, such as running the New York City Marathon and joining the U.S. National Paraclimbing Team. A new piece of technology — Meta's AI glasses — is her latest tool to help her stay savvy and adaptable on a daily basis.

"The glasses make my life easier," said the 27 year old. "They make things faster and they make me able to do more in the day because it's just quicker and easier to do things and I feel less tired at the end of the day."

Meta originally designed the glasses for users to stream video on the go and interact with the world around them using AI. The newest iteration of the technology was unveiled last week and includes the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 glasses and a new model of smart Oakley glasses aimed at sports enthusiasts. 

Members of the blind community have found new ways to use the technology.

Users are able to connect their glasses to the "Be My Eyes" app which connects blind and visually impaired users with volunteers to assist with recognizing objects and managing everyday tasks in real time. Such activities may include going through mail, or helping individuals grocery shop.

The new AI glasses also use optical character recognition, or OCR, which can recognize and read aloud text for users on menus, receipts and mail. For Lakrout, having access to text-based information like signs in a subway station or on street corners is what makes AI technology useful. She says Meta's AI glasses are bringing blind communities one step closer to accessing this information.

The glasses, however, are work in progress says Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind.

"(They) work well for some things, doesn't work well in other situations," he said.

Lakrout discovered this for herself. When she tried the glasses on in a restaurant, they read the menu to her perfectly but couldn't tell her the price for a specific item on second prompt. When using some of the AI-powered features, the glasses' battery died, and so she regularly had to keep them in their case to charge.

More importantly, Riccobono said, is that Meta has "taken an interest in working with blind people to make the technology better, make it more accurate, make it more meaningful to the experience of blind people." 

Lakrout and Riccobono both agree that AI technology and Meta's glasses are a useful step in enhancing the blind and visually impaired community's independence. But in the end, the glasses do not "replace the need for human capacity," Riccobo said. "So we need to teach blind people and we still need to make sure that blind people develop the skills that blind people need to be successful." 

• Technology
• Meta