Concern 393 · Working draft · editorial review in progress
Sign-language exclusion
Sign-language exclusion occurs when AI services overlook signed languages or treat them as simple substitutes for spoken words.
Understanding the concern
Signed languages have their own grammar and use movement, space and facial information. There is no single universal sign language. A speech-to-text feature can help some users, but it is not equivalent to communication in a person's signed language. Systems built around audio alone can therefore leave people out.
Research calls for Deaf communities to lead the development and evaluation of signed-language tools. Recognising isolated signs in a lab is different from understanding a real conversation. Consent, camera conditions and linguistic variation also matter. A useful service should offer an appropriate communication route rather than assume one accessibility feature serves everyone.
An example
A support service advertises accessibility because it has captions, but provides no suitable option for a user who needs communication in a signed language.
Illustrative unless identified as a documented case.
Words in plain English
- AI
- Software that learns patterns from examples or uses rules to perform tasks such as recognizing images or generating text. It can make mistakes and does not understand every situation as a person would.
Evidence and its limits
The paper explains linguistic and participation requirements. It does not claim that all Deaf people use the same language or communication method.
Yin, Moryossef, Hochgesang, Goldberg and Alikhani; ACL · Research position paper
Including Signed Languages in Natural Language Processing ↗ (opens in a new tab)Linguistic and community requirements for signed-language technology.
Broader frameworks and background
These resources provide context. They do not establish every claim in this concern.
A question to discuss
Have local signing communities helped define what useful and accurate support would look like?
Keep track of different views, what needs checking, and any next step in your own discussion notes.
Open discussion notes →Principles for the conversation
Before you finish · reflect together
Virtues and principles to consider
Virtues are qualities we practice in how we treat people and make choices. They are not scores for judging someone. Use these ideas to explore what a thoughtful response could look like.
Justice
Justice means fair treatment, fair procedures, and attention to who receives benefits and burdens. It asks whether people with less power can be heard and seek repair.
Look at outcomes across different groups and individual cases. Provide a usable way to challenge decisions and correct harm. Equal wording in a policy does not guarantee equal treatment in practice.
Ask together: Who benefits, who bears the cost, and who can challenge the decision?
Dignity
Dignity means recognizing each person's worth regardless of usefulness, status, or a system's score. People deserve respect and a voice in matters that affect them.
Explain important decisions, avoid humiliating treatment, and keep room for a person's story. Do not treat a prediction as a complete account of who someone is.
Ask together: Does this use treat each person as someone whose experience matters?
Listening
Listening means trying to understand someone's experience before preparing an answer. People who use a service, work with it, or are judged by it may notice problems its designers miss.
Invite people to describe what happened in their own words. Repeat back what you understood and let them correct it. A quiet person or a complaint that is hard to measure may still reveal something important.
Ask together: Whose experience have we not heard yet?
Editorial ratings
These are editorial judgments from the register, not measured probabilities or predictions about your situation.
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