I had the opportunity to speak in Mainz for the representatives of employees with severe disabilities at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Transformation, and Digitalisation, as well as at the annual meeting of the representatives of employees with severe disabilities of the Rheinland Pfalz police. Both events showed how important it is not only to observe developments in the world of AI, but to actively understand them.
For more than ten years, I have repeatedly emphasized how fast innovation is moving and how crucial openness to new ideas is. Especially in the field of accessibility, progress is currently happening at an incredible pace and has the potential to change how we live together in the long term. Prosthetics, robotics, and modern perception technologies are removing barriers at a speed that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Targeted support for these technologies would benefit all of us, because where we overcome the greatest barriers, society grows stronger together.
At the same time, one thing is clear: as the speed of benefits increases, so does the speed of risks. In my talks, I showed several examples of how quickly data can be used against us and how boldly some providers act. This makes it even more important to understand these developments. AI does not take everything away from us, neither today nor in the future. But it can support us if we know how to use it. And this knowledge is changing every day.
