AI, language, and slop.

So we had a few posts about an article, since gone. I actually chased down the article and read it. Here's the link. https://aaif.io/blog/native-speakers-why-ais-most-powerful-users-are-blind/ First, this is the most interesting thing I've seen about AI, so let me summarize. Essentially the argument is that since AI describes things with language, and takes language as input, if you get the accessibility issues correct now, while we're defining the standards, it's all accessible. On the one hand, duh! Of course if you build accessibility in from the beginning, you've got accessibility. But the argument is sort of interesting. Basically the argument is that things like accessibility trees for web pages are language, exactly the sort of thing that AI agents want as input. I have no idea what MCP is or how it's not accessible now, but they seem to feel that if we have accessible MCP standards, we get all kinds of accessibility for AI built-in, form the ground up, because it's already using language, just like a screen reader. So where does slop come in? Those now deleted posts kept using a term that baffled me, "semantic surface". That's what made me look up the article, I wanted to see if it actually defined it or not. Here's the thing. I think AI made it up. Because "semantic surface" doesn't actually occur in this article. They do talk about a "tool surface", and I confess, I have no better understanding of what that means than I do of "semantic surface". But at least it's a term that's actually used in the article. While I'm at it, let me address an argument from the latest deleted post. Their argument is wrong, did they bring "the murder weapon" themselves? No, and here's why. The contention is that the article says we should keep screen readers, but some other blind dude said screen readers are bolted on accessibility after the fact, always playing catch up. So we're defeating the whole purpose, the argument goes, by keeping these old dumb screen readers around, that are always behind, assuming the wonderland materializes, it hasn't yet. Here's why it's wrong. Screen readers are playing catch up because, say a new program comes out. If it does something non-standard, somebody has to write code to translate that into language. Say somebody's website has a new way to specify links. Well, then the screen reader has to be told, basically, this is a link, this part tells you it's a link, that part tells you where the link goes, and so on, whatever you'd want to know about links. But if everything becomes language to make AI agents happy, then the screen reader already *has* those descriptions. That's literally the point of the article, why it thinks that if we get this right, there's the promise of more accessibility. If, the article's argument goes, we get AI accessible and AI is using language and screen readers are using language, then there you go, everything's using language and you can communicate. In the old DOS days, and this might still go on for all I know, menus were often done with highlighting via color changes. SO you knew you picked "open" because "open" was in a different color from the other options. Well, you have to tell the screen reader, if this option is in a different color or has a different border or is blinking or whatever, it's probably the one that's currently selected. Contrast this with something like ARIA on the web, where you have a button, and it has roles/states. There, you get it telling you, "I'm selected". I mean, ideally, when people code correctly. Nobody has to guess. That's the argument, AI agents talk like this too. Relevant quote: "Google has said as much outright: its own guidance for building agent-friendly websites points developers to the accessibility tree – the semantic layer assistive technology has always used – and describes it, for an AI agent, as a “high-fidelity map” of the page’s interactive elements that strips away the visual noise of CSS. The same artifact built for blind users is the one the world’s largest browser vendor now tells developers to expose for agents." This article isn't saying that screen readers are outdated bullshit tech we should abandon because reasons. It's literally saying that what screen readers are doing today with things like accessibility trees are great for AI agents, so if we make sure the AI agents are accessible, we can take advantage of this, presumably in both directions. Screen readers already give accessibility trees and provide a good model for creating new things accessible to AI, and the AI should be able to give back new accessibility trees for screen readers. Again consider a button on a website. If we have to tell AI it's selected, not use colors or borders or whatever, then we can equally tell a screen reader the same thing, and the other way round, naturally. It's not that complicated. You don't need to invent things like "semantic surface". Hell you don't even need to use "tool surface", but you do you, article. Mind you, this argument has issues. Notably, a lot of blind people seem pretty excited, understandably, about things like AI image description. Well, if it can do that, why not hand it the same old website, highlighting and colors and all, and let it figure things out? In other words, the article assumes that descriptive language is the best way to feed things to AI agents, and it will continue to be. But why shouldn't we assume that people might think that feeding it visual things like images and highlighting and all is better, since that's how it will learn about those things? Anyway, because I'm a language nerd, I thought the actual argument about how accessibility trees are language and AI agents also want language as input, and that potentially means more accessibility for us was pretty interesting. And I managed, hopefully, to describe what's going on without a lot of fancy complicated words that obscure what I'm saying or even change what the article's saying. Apologies if I got anything wrong, because I didn't use any AI, just my dumb brain. Trust me, it has all the issues. I just woke up and I'm gonna need a nap now, or at least more coffee. this is too much thinking for me.