AI and Accessibility

A personal message from Oui's founder. 

Why I use AI:
 

For me, AI is an aid.
 

I don't particularly like admitting that I need help to bring my thoughts to life in a coherent way. There is a part of me that wishes I could simply sit down, read for hours, absorb everything in front of me and write in the way I used to.
 

Because I used to be able to.
 

As an academic, reading, researching, thinking and writing weren't simply things I did. They were an enormous part of how I understood myself.
 

Since becoming unwell, my cognitive function has changed. I struggle to read for extended periods. Sustained concentration exhausts me. I know what I want to say, but turning those thoughts into a structured piece of writing can take far more from me than it once did.

I can't even begin to describe what it's like to have been able to speak four languages quite fluently, to then having days where even English is hard.
 

And that has been difficult to accept.
 

At times, it feels as though illness stole part of my identity and has yet to return it.
 

That is the context in which I use AI.
 

Not because I don't want to think.
 

Not because I don't want to research.
 

And certainly not because I don't care about the integrity of what I publish.
 

I use it because sometimes my brain cannot get me from the idea in my head to the words on the page without help.
 

AI can help me organise information, structure thoughts, interrogate what I have written, identify areas that need further research and turn a collection of ideas into something coherent enough for me to work with. I can then question it, change it, rewrite it, reject it, research it and decide what eventually belongs on Oui.
 

It helps with the process. It doesn't replace the person behind it.
 

That distinction matters enormously to me.
 

Perhaps one of the reasons I find using AI uncomfortable is because academia teaches us to place such enormous value on our ability to read, analyse and write independently. When those abilities become harder, it can feel like losing something much bigger than productivity.
 

It can feel like losing part of yourself.
 

I'm still learning how to reconcile the academic I was before I became ill with the person I am now — someone who sometimes needs different tools to do the things that once came naturally.
 

And perhaps I need to extend to myself the same principle I would readily apply to somebody else:
 

Needing aid doesn't make the work, the ideas or the person behind them less valuable.
 

I wouldn't think somebody's words were less their own because they dictated them using speech-to-text. I wouldn't think somebody understood a paper less because a screen reader helped them access it.
 

So I'm trying not to judge myself differently for using a tool that helps me overcome some of the cognitive barriers I now experience.
 

That doesn't mean handing responsibility to AI.
 

I choose what Oui talks about. The questions are mine. The lived experiences are mine. I decide what I agree with, what I don't, what needs checking and what gets published. For medical and scientific articles, I aim to verify important factual claims against authoritative guidance and the original research wherever possible, and I provide those references so readers can examine the evidence themselves.
 

AI can be wrong. Sometimes spectacularly so. I don't consider it a medical or academic source, and I don't expect readers to either.
 

But it helps me write.
 

And right now, I need that help.
 

I'm choosing to be open about it because hiding that reality would feel contrary to what Oui is trying to do.
 

Oui is about making difficult things easier to talk about.
 

Apparently, for me, this is one of them.

Oui. Together, We Can.

Georgina Watson