Disability and AI: Much more than assistive technologies

Summary: Argues that AI’s implications for disabled people extend well beyond assistive tech, touching employment, benefits, and civil rights.

Relevance: Speaks to the Aging, Disability & Care subdomain beyond direct-service assistive tech, pointing social workers toward AI’s role in employment screening, benefits determination, and civil-rights exposure for disabled clients.

Key findings: Published as a Perspective piece in Science (2025); the article’s central claim is that AI’s effects on disabled people extend past assistive devices into structural domains such as hiring, eligibility determination, and rights protections. The full text is paywalled, so specific examples and figures beyond this framing could not be independently verified — flagged for reviewer follow-up.

Read the original: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea4918