AI-based apps, such as Be My Eyes, Envision, and Aira Explorer, are functioning as a kind of “digital mirror.” By describing photos, these tools show blind users what they look like: from skin tone and hair style to clothing combinations and facial expressions.
Artificial intelligence is giving blind people something that has been out of reach for decades: visual feedback about their physical appearance. For many, it’s the first time they’ve “seen” themselves. But alongside the empowerment, there are also emotional and psychological consequences that have yet to be fully explored.
According to a BBC article, AI-based apps like Be My Eyes, Envision, and Aira Explorer are functioning as a kind of “digital mirror.” By describing photos, these tools show blind users what they look like: from skin tone and hair style to clothing choices and facial expressions.
A totally blind woman, author of a BBC story, reveals that every morning she follows a skincare ritual and then takes photos that she sends to an app for analysis. “It’s like having a mirror,” she says. For the first time, appearance is not just an abstract idea, but concrete information.
STRENGTH, BUT ALSO NEW PRESSURE
Lucy Edwards, a blind content creator and activist who rose to fame by teaching other blind people how to apply makeup, tells the BBC that AI has fundamentally changed the way they experience themselves. “For years we’ve been told that our beauty is internal, because we can’t see ourselves. Suddenly we have access to all this information and it’s life-changing,” she said. But experts warn that this “textual mirror” could also have negative consequences.
Helena Lewis-Smith, a researcher in the psychology of body image at the University of Bristol, explains to the BBC that the more feedback and comparisons a person receives about their body, the lower their satisfaction with their appearance may be.
“AI is opening this door for blind people,” she says. Some apps even offer ratings based on traditional beauty standards, comparisons to other people, or suggestions for what “should be changed.” For some, this is liberating. For others, it’s shocking.
BEAUTY STANDARDS AND ALGORITHMIC PREJUDICES
According to the BBC, one of the main problems is that artificial intelligence models often reflect idealized, Eurocentric and narrow standards of beauty, due to the data they are trained on. This can create new psychological pressure, especially for people who have not previously had direct exposure to visual images and constant comparisons.
Meryl Alper, a media and disability researcher at Northeastern University in the US, tells the BBC that body image is not just a matter of appearance. It depends on context, experience, comparisons and the body’s capabilities, elements that AI currently does not understand and does not include in its descriptions. Another concern is so-called AI “hallucinations”, cases where the system describes details that are not there.
The BBC cites the example of Joaquín Valentinuzzi, a blind young man who used AI to select photos for a dating app. The descriptions, he says, were sometimes inaccurate and this caused him uncertainty. Some platforms have introduced the possibility of verification by human agents, but in most cases, the “mirror” remains completely algorithmic.
A NEW REALITY
Experts agree that this technology is still in its early stages and there is a lack of in-depth research on its long-term impact on the mental health of blind people. However, for many of them, the experience is both empowering and confusing.
As Lucy Edwards concludes on the BBC, “AI can now tell me what I looked like next to my husband on my wedding day. We’re going to take that as a positive. These are things we thought we had lost forever, and now technology is giving them back to us.” For better or worse, the AI mirror is here, and society is learning to live with the reflection it provides.