Facebook is now using AI to automatically describe photos to blind people

In a move to improve accessibility to site, the social network announced Monday that it is using AI to automatically detect what is shown in photos that users upload - and will then narrate them to people who are visually impaired. In one example Facebook gives, someone uploads a photo of a couple smiling while wearing sunglasses by the coast. "Image may contain: two people, smiling, sunglasses, outdoor, water," the AI says. Previously, blind users would only be told that someone has uploaded a photo - so if the user didn't manually add a description, they would have no idea what's in it. "Every day, people share more than 2 billion photos across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp," Facebook's head of accessibility Jeffrey Wieland and others wrote in a blog post explaining the update.