@-0--1- @David G. Smith If anything, the AI to describe the image should be chooseable, and the available AIs should be configurable at least for the admin. And especially, AI image description must not be mandatory and hard-coded. There must always be a way to describe an image manually, no matter how many people swear that AI is better at describing any image out there than any human.

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@PalmAndNeedle I know. I have evidence.

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@Anna Maier I don't know what constitutes a "good" example in your opinion, but I've got two examples of how bad AI is at describing images with extremely obscure niche content, much less explaining them.

In both cases, I had the Large Language and Vision Assistant describe one of my images, always a rendering from within a 3-D virtual world. And then I compared it with a description of the same image of my own.

That said, I didn't compare the AI description with my short description in the alt-text. I went all the way and compared it with my long description in the post, tens of thousands of characters long, which includes extensive explanations of things that the average viewer is unlikely to be familiar with. This is what I consider the benchmark.

Also, I fed the image at the resolution at which I posted it, 800x533 pixels, to the AI. But I myself didn't describe the image by looking at the image. I described it by looking around in-world. If an AI can't zoom in indefinitely and look around obstacles, and it can't, it's actually a disadvantage on the side of the AI and not an unfair advantage on my side.

So without further ado, exhibit A:

This post contains

• an image with an alt-text that I've written myself (1,064 characters, including only 382 characters of description and 681 characters of explanation where the long description can be found),
• the image description that I had LLaVA generate for me (558 characters)
• my own long and detailed description (25,271 characters)

The immediate follow-up comment dissects and reviews LLaVA's description and reveals where LLaVA was too vague, where LLaVA was outright wrong and what LLaVA didn't mention although it should have.

If you've got some more time, exhibit B:

Technically, all this is in one thread. But for your convenience, I'll link to the individual messages.

Here is the start post with

• an image with precisely 1,500 characters of alt-text, including 1,402 characters of visual description and 997 characters mentioning the long description in the post, all written by myself
• my own long and detailed image description (60,553 characters)

Here is the comment with the AI description (1,120 characters; I've asked for a detailed description).

Here is the immediate follow-up comment with my review of the AI description.

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@Blue Headline - Tech News I've let AI describe two of my images. After I've described them myself, each one twice even. It was just to see what'd happen.

The results were about as pathetic as expected. What the AI whipped up was incomplete and inaccurate. It wasn't even a match for my short descriptions which I had written for the alt-texts, much less for my long descriptions which went directly into the posts.

Maybe AI can describe a cat photo (and I've seen it fail even at that task). But AI will never be as good at describing images showing extremely obscure niche content as someone who really knows that particular niche topic inside-out. And I'm not even talking about explaining images in addition to describing them.

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@Jeffrey D. Stark But you shouldn't have to.

Besides, I'd like to see an AI accurately transcribe two lines of texts that take up six pixels in width and one pixel in height in an image. Or accurately recognise the texture on the clothes of my avatar at this resolution and this lighting.

Again, I can do both.

#ImageDescription #ImageDescriptions #ImageDescriptionMeta #CWImageDescriptionMeta #A11y #Accessibility #AI #AIVsHuman #HumanVsAI

Mastodon is increasingly moving from #NoAltTextNoBoost to #CrappyAltTextNoBoost, and I can see it move further to #NotEnoughAltTextNoBoost.

It is moving from only ostracising people for not providing image descriptions past ostracising people for providing useless image descriptions towards ostracising people for providing AI-generated image descriptions because they're at least partially wrong. The next victims may be people whose image descriptions leave out elements in the image which others may deem necessary to describe.

As quality requirements for image descriptions are being raised, I can't possibly lower the quality of my own image descriptions. If anything, I'll continue to upgrade my own image descriptions to stay ahead.

This is also why I'm worried about moving the long descriptions from the post text body into linked external documents. Not having certain descriptions and any explanations anywhere in the post anymore may backfire, and the external documents themselves may not be accessible and inclusive after all.

Interestingly, this is not congruent with what I read from actually non-sighted people. They don't even seem to care for accuracy which they can't verify anyway as long as the image description is funny and/or whimsical. Since it seems to be exactly that what AI delivers, it's no wonder that many blind people prefer image descriptions from BeMyAI over image descriptions from human experts.

I think I'll keep on writing my monster descriptions, two for each original image. If any of you who aren't sighted don't like them for not being whimsical enough, feel free to ignore the hours or days of work I've put into them, fire up your AI and have your own image description generated.

@accessibility group @a11y group

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So you think AI is always better at describing and even explaining any image out there than any human, including insiders and experts on the very topic shown in the image? 100% accurately? And at a higher level of detail than said humans?

Well, here's an image.

I'd like to see AI identify the place shown in the image as the central crossing at BlackWhite Castle and identify BlackWhite Castle as a standard-region-sized sim on Pangea Grid, a virtual world or so-called "grid" based on OpenSimulator.

I'd like to see AI explain the above, all the way down to a level that can easily be understood by someone who has only got a rough idea about what virtual worlds are.

I'd like to see AI correctly mention the pop-cultural links from this sim to German Edgar Wallace films and Frühstyxradio that are obvious to me.

I'd like to see AI correctly identify the avatar in the middle. By name. And know that identifying the avatar is appropriate in this context.

I'd like to see AI know and tell the real reason why the avatar is only shown from behind.

I'd like to see AI recognise that the image was not edited into monochrome, but it's actually both the avatar and the entire sim with everything on and around it that's monochrome.

I'd like to see AI transcribe text that's unreadable in the image. 100% accurately verbatim, letter by letter.

I'd like to see AI identify the object to the right and explain its origin, its purpose and its functionality in detail.

I'd like to see AI discover and mention the castle in the background.

I'd like to see AI accurately figure out whether it's necessary to explain any of the above to the expected audience and, if correctly deemed necessary, do so. And explain the explanations if correctly deemed necessary.

I'd like to see AI know and correctly mention which direction the camera is facing.

Finally, I'd like to see AI automatically generate two image descriptions, a full and detailed one with all explanations and a shorter one that can fit into 1,500 characters minus the number of characters necessary to mention the full description and explain its location.

When I posted the same image, I did all of the above. And more.

In fact, if AI is supposed to be better than me, I expect it to identify all trees in the image, not only the mountain pines, to give an even more detailed description of the motel advertisement and to give a much more detailed description of the map, including verbatim transcripts of all text on it and accurate information on what place is shown on the map in the first place.

If AI is supposed to be better than me, I expect it to

• describe, explain and transcribe everything that I describe, explain and transcribe
• describe, explain and transcribe even more on top of that
• even more accurately than I do
• more whimiscally
• and in much fewer characters.

All, by the way, fully automatically with no human intervention except for maybe a simple prompt to describe the image for a certain Fediverse project.

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@Charlotte Joanne I'm among those who want to do what's right myself. But I go to greater lengths.

Describing my images at all doesn't cut it for me. I go into small details for those who would love to go exploring a whole new and unknown world just by looking at my images, but who can't see them. If something about my images isn't common knowledge, I explain it, I explain the explanation and so forth, just because I think having people look such things up is not accessible and not inclusive.

Whenever someone likes something about someone else's image descriptions, I try to implement it myself. That's why I go as far as describing the position, height and angle of the camera if it's out of the ordinary.

I also try hard to follow as many rules of good image descriptions as possible and follow them to a tee. I transcribe text that's impossible to read. There's a rule that all text within the borders of an image must be transcribed, but there's none about unreadable text. I always prefer to err on the side of too much.

The only rule I break is the rule that alt-text must be as short as possible, preferably no longer than 200 characters. But that rule conflicts with the other rules, with what seems to make an image description good and with what my images in particular need. And besides, there seem to be more people in the Fediverse who like detailed descriptions than people who insist in short alt-text.

And so I fill the alt-text up to the limit of 1,500 characters imposed by several Fediverse projects. And what goes into the alt-text is actually already greatly shortened from the sheer monstrosity of a detailed image description that I put into the post.

I can take several days to describe one image. The resulting full, long image description can be longer than a hundred standard Mastodon toots for one single image, just so that it can provide all information that I think must be provided.

Obviously, this fails to satisfy everyone, even nearly everyone. I guess that for many Fediverse users, even my short descriptions in the alt-text are too long because they keep exceeding 1,000 characters. Even then, they're lacking. In particular, they're almost always lacking text transcripts because they don't have enough room.

The text transcripts are in the full, long, detailed description in the post. But many people can't even be bothered to open the content warning behind which the post is hidden, much less read tens of thousands of characters of image description or have them read to them.

And then I come across things like this blog post by @Robert Kingett, blind that says that AI image descriptions are generally vastly superior to human-written ones.

Apparently, AI is fully capable of actually perfectly satisfying absolutely everyone with image descriptions, no matter what kind of image has to be described, and no matter who the audience may be.

Apparently, the minimum requirements for image descriptions in the Fediverse have shifted. Halfway accurate descriptions aren't that much better than nothing anymore. They aren't good enough anymore. No matter what humans produce, it isn't good enough anymore.

Even if I spend two full days, sunrise to sunset, describing one single image in over 60,000 characters which I've actually done, the description isn't good enough. And I don't mean good enough in size. I also mean good enough in accuracy, level of detail and informativity.

No matter how niche and how obscure the topic of my images is, any AI out there can describe the same image in fewer characters, but at the same time in more details, with more information and even factually more accurately. And this is apparently the minimum level that counts as good enough.

Basically, my image descriptions only serve to satisfy Mastodon's fully sighted alt-text police and for me to have an edge over their quality requirements. At least until they decide that my descriptions aren't useful enough. From that point on, I'll be the only one out there who finds AI descriptions sub-par in comparison with my own ones.

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Here's another rant about Fediverse accessibility.

AI superiority at describing images, not so alleged?

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