Disability, voice, and mobile AI

In this paper, we examine the developments at the crossroads of mobile phones and AI––mobile AI––by highlighting and considering their implications for the significant, cross-cutting, and highly intersectional area of disability. As we shall discuss, disability is remarkably prominent in how mobile AI is imagined and deployed. Several kinds of mobile AI explicitly claim to provide innovations that will improve the lives of disabled people. Such claims regarding disability have been associated with the arc of mobile media and communication since the first-generation cellular mobile phones (and telecommunications before that), as well as with the most recent phase of AI fervor fueled by generative AI. While there is some emerging work in relation to disability and AI, as yet, there is little critical discussion of disability in relation to mobile AI. Against this backdrop, we are keen to spotlight disability on the mobile AI research agenda. To do so, we discuss the implementation of an AI voice assistant by Grab. Grab is a superapp operating across Southeast Asian nation-states that has already made its mark on mobile communication and everyday life through a range of offerings. Targeted at disabled people, we analyze how Grab’s AI Voice Assistant functions and discuss its implications for inclusion and the future of mobile media and communications.