91Èȱ¬

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22nd May 2024

bbc.co.uk/accessall

Access All – episode 106

Presented by Emma Tracey

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EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý There are two bits of this episode: one bit is about artificial intelligence, and the other bit is about me learning to do my hair. Which bit are you involved with? [Laughter]

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, most definitely the AI bit. I mean, if you want an expert on hair I’m probably not the person.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You’re a top banana tech journalist on 91Èȱ¬ Click.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’m going to put that on my LinkedIn profile.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, I thought you could help me out here. I’m going to use a clever blindy AI app to check my hair. See the way I brought the two strands of the podcast together?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Loving it, loving what you're doing.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Such a professional. [App talking in the background]:

APP-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Folder. Calendar. Tuesday 21st May.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’ll get the right app first.

APP-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý 12 new notifications.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý 12 new notifications.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý 12?

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I know, I just ignore all this stuff.

APP-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Take picture.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I can’t remember whether I’ve got the back or front camera on first of all. And there’s no way of checking on this app, so I’m just going to take a picture.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, it could be a picture of me.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It could be a picture… Well, let’s see if we can guess by the description [laughter] who the picture’s of. But I also, then I can ask it questions about the picture so I’m going to ask how my hair is looking today.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Okay.

APP-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Take picture. Dimmed. Analysing picture. Please wait.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Da, da, da.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Talk amongst yourselves.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It’s having a think.

APP-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Please try again later.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Oh no.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s Karen by the way, that voice. Not my support person Karen; that’s the name of the voice that I use, Australian Karen, because she sounds nice.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Karen’s just snubbed you.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Should AI be able to tell me if my hair’s okay? Or should I be relying on it, do you think?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, I think we can tell that you probably shouldn’t be relying on it. It’s an interesting question, isn’t it, how does my hair look? Because that’s kind of subjective.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, I just got it blow dried yesterday and then I took a picture, and it said it looked tousled and unkempt.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs] Well, there you go?

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý What we usually do when we do these pre-intros is say, on with the show, so, three, two, one…

BOTH-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý On with the show!

APP-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý What about me, three question marks, on with the show, three exclamation marks.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs]

MUSIC-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Theme music.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Hello! I’m Emma Tracey, and you’re listening to Access All, the 91Èȱ¬â€™s weekly podcast dedicated to news stories about disability and mental health. And on this episode: there was another international summit on artificial intelligence this week. It was hosted by the British PM, Rishi Sunak, and the President of South Korea. Now, their focus was on safety, but one question they did not ask is what role AI is going to play in disabled people’s lives now and in the future. But you know what? When international, national leaders let you down Access All is here to pick up the slack. And we’re going to talk about that with some experts later on.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And also I’m going to get my hair done basically. Well, I’m going to go to a workshop for blind and visually impaired women which teaches them how to do their hair. And I could really use a bit of help in this area. Anyway, you can email us, accessall@bbc.co.uk, and subscribe to us on 91Èȱ¬ Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Earlier I was attempting to use AI, artificial intelligence, to check my hair situation, with limited success I would say. But artificial intelligence is just getting bigger and bigger in our lives and in the news. It’s really growing apace. But what do the developments in AI mean for disabled people in our lives? Here to discuss it with me is Paul Carter from 91Èȱ¬ Click. Hi Paul.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Hello.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý We’ve got Mike Buckley, the CEO of Be My Eyes, that app that I was trying to use to check my hair earlier and which a lot of blind people use. Hi Mike.

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Hi.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Mike’s on the line from San Francisco, so he’s gotten up very early for us which we really appreciate. And I’ve got Annalu Waller, OBE from the University of Dundee, and her thing is augmentative and alternate communication, so tech for non-speaking people. You’re so welcome, Annalu, thank you for coming on.

ANNALU-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thank you for having me.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Let’s start at the very beginning, Paul. What is AI and why should we care about it?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý What it is essentially, as the name suggests, it’s intelligence that can learn. It’s machine learning, it’s computers and software and models that can take information that already exists out there and can make sense of it, can understand it and can learn from it, and crucially adapt its responses based on the data that it's fed.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And why should we care about AI?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, I think the reason we should care is because it’s already very prevalent in everything that we’re using, and we may not even know about it, but it’s going to get even more.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, what’s it in that we wouldn’t know?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Things like smart assistants are using AI now. I mean, a lot of the accessibility features in phones are using elements of AI. The abilities of AI are developing way quicker than I think most people even imagined, and so even in the next year, two years you’re going to see it become a pretty kind of dominant force in most aspects of how we live our lives and what we do.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Okay. Well, we talked about smartphones and AI being sort of baked into some of the aspects of those, and one of the bits of AI that I use most days is a very blind or visual impairment-specific app using AI. And Mike is the CEO of that company. Mike, what is Be My Eyes?

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thanks for having me. Be My Eyes started out as an app where someone who’s blind or has low vision through their smartphone can make a phone call to a sighted volunteer anywhere in the world for assistance with a task: finding the can of tomato soup; finding your green sweater and identifying that. And starting last year we partnered with Open AI to also enable visual interpretation through artificial intelligence systems. And we now are doing about a million and a half artificial intelligence interpretation sessions every month. So, basically the blind or low-vision person who utilises our app has a choice to call a human for assistance or to use the artificial intelligence to interpret the world around.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Now, there was a new thing launched in the last week or two by Open AI, which is one of the biggest players in the artificial intelligence world, and it’s called ChatGPT-4o. Paul, what’s that then?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think most people will have heard of ChatGPT now. It’s a chatbot, it’s something that you can feed information into, ask questions, get it to identify stuff. And ChatGPT-4o is the latest iteration. It’s a stripped down, kind of more streamlined, faster version that anyone can access. And it’s pretty mind-blowing what it can do. It’s able to identify things without being prompted what it is. You can get it to make summaries of things in a different way. You can even get it to rewrite particular things in different dialects if you want. It’s kind of crazy the scope and the potential of it.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, Be My Eyes actually has tied up with ChatGPT-4o. How does it work in Be My Eyes, Mike?

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It is real time, so there’s not a delay to get the information back and forth in terms of your query. And it’s highly, highly conversational, and so the person can literally speak to it back and forth, asking information about their environment and surroundings and get an immediate response as though it were a conversation.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, let’s hear a clip of the promo video for this, which has been all over the internet in the last week or so:

[Clip]

MALE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I even know when a taxi is coming with its orange light on. I think I’ll hail it to get home.

ChatGPT-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yes, I spotted one just now. It’s heading your way on the left side of the road. Get ready to wave it down. [Taxi pulls up]. Great job hailing that taxi.

[End of clip]

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Oh my god, I don’t know how I feel about her, Paul.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs]

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’m not sure I’d want that coming out of my phone. Paul, this is a promo video; will it really work like that in reality, do you think?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? And we’ve seen lots of promo videos; Google did one for Gemini recently, which was showing offÌý their image recognition capabilities. And if it works as smoothly as the flow in the videos then I think it is something genuinely transformative. But, you know, as with all of these things the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý But I tried to use the current version to check my hair before we started this interview and actually it refused to analyse the picture. And I think it’s something to do with low internet, but it says I have two bars on my internet, but I’ve sent the picture a few times over an hour, 45 minutes or so and it keeps saying ‘can’t analyse the picture at this time.’ Mike, what’s your take on that?

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, if you have two bars it may be have trouble rendering you a result. Right now we can’t fix low internet.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs]

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý But in time, Emma, AI systems and models will learn on devices locally, and so may require a lot less back and forth to the cloud or to the internet.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You know what? My producer has just told me that this section isn’t actually all about blind people, that it’s not all about me, and that actually AI is going to be useful or scary or all those other things for different people with different impairments. And Annalu, you’re an expert in the tech for non-speaking people, and you’ve been thinking a lot about AI. Are you worried about what will happen for disabled people as AI becomes more and more ubiquitous and we’re all expected to use it in various different aspects? Do you think disabled people will either be left behind or expected to use it if they don’t want to for help with stuff?

ANNALU-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think what we see within disability is a snapshot of the dangers for everybody. And what I see as a concern is that the way AI works is that it aggregates lots and lots of data, so it finds the common denominator. And in reality we live in a very diverse world, so unless we pay attention to making sure that our models are aware of diversity, we won’t be able to find the individual human in that data prediction. So, that’s one issue.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Can I also just point out that the datasets we have for some disability groups are very small. So, if you can’t talk, you’re not going to get any dataset.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Mike, what’s your take on that?

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Annalu’s right, there are populations of people with disabilities where those datasets are very small, right. But we have to get them, we have to find them. And there is some hope for something called synthetic data. I won’t bore you with what that is, Emma, but it’s basically computer-generated trained information that can help you solve for kind of data deserts where there might not be a lot of data in something. I think the second thing is there’s an imperative for all of us, right, to lean on the large companies that are putting these models together to make sure that their datasets are necessarily inclusive.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, AI will probably be ableist because of the way it takes up the data and the data that it brings up, and the bias is against disabled people. What do you think of that, Paul?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think it’s a very good point, and it’s a slightly worrying point. Because the classic warning about AI has always been it’s only as good as the data it’s trained on, that’s what everyone says. And of course if you are feeding it information from an ableist society it is by its nature going to be ableist in output. The data that you train it on has to be vetted and come from good sources.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Mike, what do you think?

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You can’t just assume, and Annalu is much more eloquent about this than I am, that everybody has the ability to interact with a computer by speech, right. Not everybody can do that. As a society and when looking at all the companies releasing and iterating on these large language models, which are these aggregations of data and words and images, we need to make sure that thoughtful, non-ableist disability datasets are incorporated into those models.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And Paul, do you think there’s too much reliance then on these big companies, like Open AI, to self-police and to put together the right set of data in the right order?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, I think there’s a big reliance on them to self-police generally. It seems a bit weird calling companies, like Google ‘older players on the block’ compared to Open AI, but when you look at Google and Apple and people like that, companies like that, they are trying to intrinsically build accessibility and this kind of stuff into their products and their devices a bit earlier. So, I think maybe we’ve got a little bit more hope with them. But it’s such a new industry, it’s such a new field that it is imperative on all of us I think to be asking those questions and to be putting that pressure on, as Mike was saying, because at the moment it is a bit of a self-policing environment and there’s no easy answer to that.

ANNALU-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Maybe I can also add in there that I think the bigger companies have done and are doing great things about bringing accessibility into the mainstream.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý All this AI and mainstream apps bringing stuff in for disabled people is that sort of a do-goodery thing or are they actually seeing an untapped market, do you think?

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It’s both. It’s wonderful to tell companies to do the right thing, and sometimes that argument works. It’s better if I can say, ‘do the right thing, oh and by the way, there’s a return on your investment as well.’

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah.

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Right? You can serve your consumer better, smarter, faster, cheaper. If we can do both of those that’s when the businesses really take off.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Paul, do you want to come in there?

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s why we’ve seen the change that we have seen in the past five, 10, 15 years in terms of accessibility becoming more mainstream because, exactly that reason, that companies have switched onto the fact that there’s a market there. None of them have done this entirely out of the goodness of their heart, as much as we’d like to believe that.

ANNALU-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý There’s another reason as well, everybody will be disabled some time in their lifetime. Number two, whatever we do to make life easier for disabled people has a knock-on effect for everyone. So, if we produce better designed systems, easier to use, more accessible, someone who can’t see because of the sunlight will be using the same technology that you use, Emma, because you can’t see.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yes, we talk about both of those things a lot on Access All, the fact that most people, everybody will be disabled at some point, either temporarily or due to ageing. And also that what works for disabled people is probably going to make life easier for a lot of people in the long run. Mike, I think you’ve got some news for us about the future of Be My Eyes?

MIKE-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý We’re going to be launching a desktop version of the Be My AI app that specifically will work with Windows and on Microsoft products. Imagine that our Be My AI system can describe what’s on a computer screen for someone who’s blind or has low vision. Or if you have images, family photos, things like that, pictures stored locally on your computer Be My AI on the desktop will be able to analyse those.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s very good indeed. Paul, we didn’t even get time to talk about wearables. There’s so much we didn’t get time to talk about.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So much.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý There’s so much happening, isn’t there? Give me a sort of blue sky futurey thing, for yourself even, you’re disabled.

PAUL-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think for me, I mean, what I’m probably most excited about is a little bit of a vision of what Mike was offering there really, is this multimodal world. And by multimodal I mean images, texts, video, all of that that AI can look at and use as an input. And what I kind of imagine this utopia with AI looking like for disabled people is that we have one place to go where we can personalise our own accessibility needs, our own support via AI all under one roof. That’s kind of really the future I see where disabled people can tailor these products to their own personal needs.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thank you so much Paul Carter from 91Èȱ¬ Click. Thanks to Mike Buckley from Be My Eyes. And thank you so much to Annalu Waller, from the University of Dundee.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Up until relatively recently I didn’t pay much attention to how I looked at work. I made podcasts, I made audio. But then it wasn’t audio; I was in a studio with cameras, and we were doing social videos, and my face was all over the internet. Well, I mean, actually I’m not that popular, but my face was in some parts of the internet. And I had to start thinking about how I look to other people. So, I started with my outfits and I worked quite hard on those. And then I learned how to do my make-up. But my hair was a bit of a stumbling block; it’s kind of long and curly and a bit frizzy, and I was finding it really hard to figure out how best to do it in the morning. And then I found a workshop called Hair&Care which teaches blind and visually impaired women like me how to style our hair and how to feel more confident about it when we go out and about. I went along with my recorder and I spoke to Aqua:

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý They say that a woman’s hair is her crowning glory, and I feel when I look back to the days when I used to do a lot to my hair I do feel a little bit saddened, you know, I do. We don’t realise how we look, but yet other people are looking at us, and it makes me feel a little bit better about myself if I can try and do things with my hair.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And I chatted to Tom, who’s a stylist who is helping out at the workshop, and he’s losing his sight:

TOM-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý My condition is a degenerative condition, so I just have to be a lot more descriptive with my students and things like that when I’m talking about hair. I’m probably scared enough to say that it may come to an end.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I also got a chance to work with a stylist on how to do my hair and how to look after my curls every day. Here’s how I got on at the Hair&Care workshop:

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Hello team. [Background voices].

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý We have arrived in this massive space that used to be a bus depot, so it’s kind of maybe surprising that it’s going to be a hair workshop going on in here. It’s a big, big room with a big table in the middle, all set up with hair heads, so heads where you learn how to do hair. You know, you had them as a kid. I’d imagine, has it got a face? I’m with Tash, my producer, have they got faces?ÌýÌý

TASH-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yes, they’re mannequin heads with wigs on.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’ll introduce you to our volunteers. We’ve got wonderful Corinne who some of you have met before.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’m going to get my hair done today as well. Let’s get going.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone. I’m Anna, founder of Hair&Care. Really happy to welcome you all today. We were at London Fashion Week recently and we…I’m going to get emotional [voice breaks]; she’s an emotional one this one, sorry. Just such a big, big moment for us and such a great achievement so yeah, we were just feeling really, really proud because it’s the first time that a show has ever been made accessible for the blind and low vision community, so it was a really, really special moment. [Applause] okay, all right, have fun.

TOM-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Background voices] everybody knows don’t touch my corner because I know what’s there.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Oh, I’ve just sat down in my workshop spot and there’s quite a lot of stuff here. From the right-hand side we’ve got brushes, one with long and short bristles; there’s another one with different sorts of bristles [laughs]. And then on the left-hand side I’ve got some hair products. What’s great about these hair products is that they’re all in different sorts of bottles, because I can’t be bothered labelling stuff, and being able to know what they are just by picking them up is really the only way forward for me and the only way I’ll be consistent.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Right, Emma my love, okay I’m going to get to you. I’m here, I’m with you. I’m going to get you to push your chair back a little bit. Both of your hands twisting the hair.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý At the same time?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, just to see.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It’s like patting your head and rubbing your tummy.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah [laughs].

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý We’ve had to come away in the middle of you doing my hair, Anna, and teaching me how to do my hair because it was really, really noisy, the hairdryers were starting up. I really do want to find out a bit more about you. Why did you start these workshops?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I wanted to do something where I could give back, and I guess also use my skills as a hairstylist having had over 15 years’ experience.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And what’s your particular interest in the VI community, in visually impaired people?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý My father was blind. He had a degenerative disease called retinitis pigmentosa. But he was really passionate about self-care; he was always dressed in a suit, shirt and tie, always freshly shaven, would even cut his own hair amazingly.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý When he was blind?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, he’d taught himself how to do it.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý How did he do that?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý He’d use clippers and an envelope to get the straight edges at the back and sides.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And in terms of practicalities and doing your hair is there stuff blind people like me can’t do? How far can we go with this?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It’s limitless, but it’s limited because of what’s on the market. There’s still a really long way to go and so I think, well one of the other goals for Hair&Care is to help improve accessibility. And we want us to be the voice that brands come to.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You want to be the voice. You are quite a good figurehead for Hair&Care, aren’t you? You’re very involved, you do everything, you’re not a figurehead, but you’re quite a good face for Hair&Care because you’ve got quite a glamorous day job, haven’t you?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs] they say it’s glamorous, Emma, it’s not really.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Who do you work with and what do you do for them?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I work with lots of different artists. My very first introduction into music videos was on set for Born to Die, so an incredible song that came out in 2012.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s Lana Del Ray’s album.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah. It was just such an incredible moment.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Okay, Anna, let’s go back and finish doing my hair, shall we?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, amazing.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Let’s do it. We do all the way up there?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You want to do all the hair.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý All the hair?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah all the hair. So, you want to leave…

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I was leaning the wrong way.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Exactly.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Like, you know, it just makes me happy to know that it looks good to people who can see it. Yeah, looks are important to me, I can’t help it, sorry [laughter].

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It’s important to all of us and that’s the point, right. That’s it, that’s it, that’s it, it doesn’t need to be so tight around your finger. That’s it, fantastic.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý My hair feels so good. It feels so curly, it feels consistent all the way through and it makes me feel like I’ve had my hair done, which I have partly but I’ve done most of it myself and I’ll be able to do it myself next time, and I’ll still feel like I’ve had my hair done. Brilliant, I’m delighted.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Aqua, I’ve just pulled you away from the noisy workshop where you were doing your own hair, but also the hair of this here, which is a mannequin head?

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yes, I’ve called her Daytona.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Daytona, the mannequin head.

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And she’s got a face?

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, she’s got a face.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You’ve been coming to these workshops for a while. Are you totally blind? Have you got some sight?

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’ve got some sight. I’m of native Afro Caribbean origin, so I’ve been used to going to the hairdresser to do weaves, braids, for having my hair relaxed. As I’ve got older and with medication my hair’s changing, so now I’m doing more hands-on work with myself with my hair. And then coming to the workshops has shown me different products, different ways of caring for my hair.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And how did medication change your hair?

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Loud whisper] Don’t tell anyone: two bald patches.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And how did it feel when the hair fell out?

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý They say that a woman’s hair is her crowning glory, and when I look back to the days when I used to do a lot to my hair I do feel a little bit saddened, I do. Like you said earlier on about the way we look, we don’t realise how we look, but yet other people are looking at us. And it makes me feel a little bit better about myself that I can try and do things with my hair.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Tom Hassler, you’re on of the volunteers here. Why did you decide to volunteer at these workshops?

TOM-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, I first heard about the Hair&Care workshops through Anna, having been a hairdresser and doing things like this before I had my vision loss. It was an incredible opportunity to come up and join the workshops as well.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You’re a hairdresser right now and you’re losing your sight?

TOM-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I am. It’s taken a while for me to get used to. I’m lucky enough to still be able to work at the moment. My condition is a degenerative condition.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, what are your hopes for the future? What do you want to happen?

TOM-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It’s to still be a part of doing things like this, and being involved in making things a lot more accessible.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And what could be made more accessible? What are the barriers just now?

TOM-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, some of the barriers are things like shampoo bottles and conditioner bottles; in the shower how do I know which one’s which? A little tip that myself and my sister use is we have a single elastic band around the shampoo, and then two elastic bands around the conditioner.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Lovely.

TAYLOR-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Background voices] now we’ll finish it off. Use this technique to then just brush through the section of hair.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Taylor, I’ve pulled you out of the workshop. What have you learned today?

TAYLOR-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So much. I feel like before this workshop I didn’t think about having a relationship with my hair, and I just thought it was a visual thing that I kind of had to battle with rather than work with. So, yeah, using the senses that visually impaired people have that are heightened and, like, using them to our advantage. That’s how I came to have up-dos a lot because the bun, which is my signature hair as a musician, was like, oh this is great, I can learn this one style and once it’s up it’s up.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý What’s the relationship between you and your hair and your hair and how you feel?

TAYLOR-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý As a visually impaired person who can’t check themselves in the mirror and can’t look around and see how other people look, having a confidence in your image is really important.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thank you.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Taylor, I’m going to take you back through because we’re going to do the end. [Through mic] we saw some amazing looks. Everyone’s got loads of volume and body. Up to here, I’ve never seen so much hair [laughs].

AQUA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’ve really enjoyed today. I know everyone so far said they’ve enjoyed today. A bit like Taylor, today I had a reintroduction to my own hair. I said, hello, how are you?

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think we should do a little round of applause [applause]. How did you find it? How was your workshop?

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I learned a great thing, which is that I don’t need to wash my hair as much as I do; how to define the curls literally by twisting up. But I’ve really enjoyed the experience. It’s almost like a support group. It’s a great thing.

ANNA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thank you [applause]. Well done everyone. That is the end of the Hair&Care project workshop.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I really wish that I was going on a big night out or doing something very, very exciting with this lovely curly hair. But I do hope that the people on the 55 bus appreciate my defined curly locks [laughter].

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, I wasn’t very pleased because all the way through that number 55 bus journey back to the office absolutely no random strangers came up and told me that my hair looked great. Raging. Anyway, since the workshop,Ìý I’ve become a bit more confident with my hair. I don’t think I’m perfect at it, but I know what products to use and how much product and physically what to do with it to get the curls more defined, so it has made a big difference and I do feel a lot better about my hair.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý If you want to find out more about the Hair&Care project, it’s the ‘and’ sign between Hair&Care, go to their website. And they also have a survey there that you can fill out about how they can help more blind and visually impaired people in the future. They’re looking at doing some online videos and YouTube tutorials etc, so that might be worth taking a look at.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The 91Èȱ¬ World Service has a really lovely podcast called Dear Daughter. It’s presented by Namulanta Kombo, and it basically consists of people writing letters to their daughters. This week’s episode is about being autistic, and it features British comedian Ria Lina, and it talks about her experience of autism. And this clip you’re about to hear is about masking and filtering, and that’s all about hiding some of your autistic traits when surrounded by neurotypical people.

[Clip]

RIA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Females with autism are known as chameleons because of our ability to walk into a room, socially assess it, and then put on a filter that suits the room. So, you could be at a party and you can see one girl who’s working the room, and she’s the life of the party and she’s laughing, she’s having a great time; that could well be your autistic because she’s walked in and gone, ‘We’re in a party, I must be…you know, this is how one acts at a party’. Then after she’s gone she will go to a quiet dark place and crash because she’s used up all the energy that she has. So, those are things that you do learn and you get better. What you get better at is A, you can add skills to the filter over time. I’ve certainly learned to add eye contact to the filter, I’ve learned to add smiling, saying thank you, saying goodbye.

[End of clip]

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Listen to the rest of that episode and hear every episode of Dear Daughter on 91Èȱ¬ Sounds. That’s it, another episode of Access All has come to an end. Thanks this week go to all my AI ninjas and also to everybody involved in the Hair&Care workshop, which really was a lot of fun. Please get in touch with us, I love to hear from you. You can contact us on WhatsApp, just put Access at the start of your message. We’re on 0330 123 9480. And you can email accessall@bbc.co.uk. Subscribe to us on 91Èȱ¬ Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts from, and please do tell your friends about us. See you next week. Bye bye!

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