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Introduction

Broadly speaking, AI is the endeavor to replicate human intelligence through machines (Gadepally et al., 2019), and is currently having an impact in a range of sectors, industries, and professions.  In this context, AI has been described as part of Industry 4.0 (Maddikunta et al., 2022) where it is used to help make manufacturing industries “smart” by interconnecting machines and devices that can control each other throughout the life cycle. In addition to the process of automation; helping to reduce the intervention of humans in a manufacturing process. Developments in AI continue to raise benefits and risks. This is especially true when considering the ways AI can impact people with disabilities and marginalised groups.  Highlighting this issue, Nugent and Scott-Parker (2022) suggest that while “these systems [AI] are marketed as highly capable and objective tools for decision making, a growing body of research demonstrates a record of inaccurate results as well as inherent disadvantages for historically marginalised groups” (p. 1). 
In response to the growth and interest in AI, we are keen to solicit opinion pieces that relate to AI applied to the field of enabling technologies (that is: technologies that enable and support people with disabilities and from marginalised groups) that address, or discuss or bring to bear, the broad range of challenges, debates, trends, and applications.  We are interested in ways AI is, or could, impact the field with a focus on the following areas: 

• Benefits of AI to marginalised groups/people
• Ethical implications, challenges and barriers
• Inclusion of marginalised groups in co-designing the future of AI
• Applied use of AI with and for marginalised groups
• Using AI to improve quality of life
• Implications of big data (data mining, data analytics, and data preprocessing)
• Aspects of cloud computing and ways to leverage this (utilize AI resources on-demand without significant upfront investments)
• Ways natural language processing (NLP) can benefit marginalised groups (language understanding, machine translation, sentiment analysis, and question-answering systems)
• Reinforcement learning and approaches in AI (robotics, game playing, and optimization)
• Edge computing (autonomous vehicles, smart home devices, and real-time video analysis) deployed and applied to marginalised groups.
• Explainable AI (XAI)
• Where AI is best placed within our field
• Accessibility and usability of AI 
• Using AI in education
• Collaborating with/across disciplines when designing for AI
• Methods of evaluation using AI
• Others areas that are relevant to this call

We are especially keen to publish papers from marginalised groups and encourage pieces from authors within these communities who have had experiences of, or undertaken work, in AI fields.  

Note: Opinion Pieces are evaluated and reviewed by a member/s of the editorial team who make a final decision on any revisions (we may request) and whether or not to publish.  Opinion Pieces are papers where content is dependent on the author's opinion and interpretation. This may still include referencing and citations, but the paper will include views, opinions, and discuss ideas based on perspectives (which will often be expert led).    

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available by clicking the button below.

Submit your opinion piece here!

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. 

References

Gadepally, V., Goodwin, J., Kepner, J., Reuther, A., Reynolds, H., Samsi, S., ... & Martinez, D. (2019). Ai enabling technologies: A survey. arXiv preprint arXiv:1905.03592.
Nugent, S. E., & Scott-Parker, S. (2022). Recruitment AI has a Disability Problem: anticipating and mitigating unfair automated hiring decisions. In Towards Trustworthy Artificial Intelligent Systems (pp. 85-96). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Maddikunta, P. K. R., Pham, Q. V., Prabadevi, B., Deepa, N., Dev, K., Gadekallu, T. R., ... & Liyanage, M. (2022). Industry 5.0: A survey on enabling technologies and potential applications. Journal of Industrial Information Integration, 26, 100257.