surprisingly controversial, just want to say two things
1. 100% depends on execution. If the model is bad then obviously it won’t be helpful
2. It is obviously no substitute for good human-written alt text. HOWEVER, even though this site has a good culture for writing alt text, only a tiny…
…fraction of images posted even has alt text, and I’d bet that only a fraction of that have *good* alt text. While this tool wouldn’t raise the ceiling, it certainly would provide a baseline for that overwhelming majority of images that would otherwise go without. Please don’t stop writing alt text!
and like, sure, probably going to be a lot of slop, but is this really *worse* than nothing? bare in mind this is on-device, aka your browser looking at an image without alt text and describing it, rather than the person uploading it adding lazy alt text
i would really love an upload version but with mandatory human review by the uploader... like, pre-fill alt text for me but have me change and approve it. would make things so much simpler.
Agreed. And while this isn't an excuse for most people, this is still a better description than some people with intellectual disabilities could write themselves. If executed well, it could be a good accessibility tool in both directions--which is AI at its best.
