Lab at UW studying and developing AI programs for people with disabilities
Lab at UW studying and developing AI programs for people with disabilities
Publish Date: 2026-03-16 12:03:00
Source Domain: komonews.com
SEATTLE — Every day, we hear more ways artificial intelligence is being integrated into our lives.
We have seen AI for years, like when Netflix has an automated list of suggested movies or shows. But what is emerging now is generative AI.
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“It creates more opportunities for people to be able to engage in various ways,” said Dr. Jazette Johnson, a postdoctoral fellow at UW.
And a lab at the University of Washington is looking at new ways to use or improve the technology.
“It is important that not pause in development and engagement but also bring caution when we are presenting various things,” Johnson said.
Johnson is homing in on systems to help adults with dementia or other cognitive disabilities.
“Now [patients] will go to ChatGPT and say, ‘Hey, tell me what that means,’ but you don’t have boundaries with ChatGPT right now,” Johnson said. “So, I created a system where you can actually have those boundaries. If it’s something that’s about diagnoses and complicated information, go talk to your doctor, but if I’m just trying to understand a lab result, here’s the information.”
Johnson said the idea is both to have the patient information in the backend, so it is all accurate, and then about how “we can use AI to simplify language” that often appears on online patient portals and charts.
And the program’s prototype has already been tested by 8 adults with impairment and one caregiver for someone with dementia.
“When they actually engaged with the specific tool, they were like ‘wow, I did not know this could happen,'” Johnson said.
Johnson said as the program is further developed, of course, implementation of things like HIPAA will need to be at the forefront of mind. But she said overall, one day the program could grow and eventually be used by anyone in their patient portal.
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