It’s an incredibly exciting day for Be My Eyes and the V I community. Be My AI is today moving into an open beta cycle and will be massively expanding its availability over the coming days for iPhone users.
Having been a part of the beta testing group since very early on, I have seen Be My AI evolve to the version everyone will soon have access to. We’ve been through some incredible ups and downs, most notably with the legal issues around describing faces but seeing the dedication and determination both Open AI and Be My Eyes have shown to get this potentially life changing product to us completely free of charge has been simply awe inspiring and whats more, they’ve pulled it off. So here we are, everyone in the world will soon have access to the most powerful AI powered tool to describe the visual world that has ever existed. At no cost!
To use Be My AI, launch the Be My Eyes app and tap on the Be My AI tab at the bottom of your screen. It’s the second tab from the left. Just take a photo and wait for the description, you’ll get some hold music while you wait. You can then ask follow up questions or just send another photo to be described. The more creative you get with your questions, The more Be My AI will surprise you with what it can do and if you aren’t getting the information you need, don’t worry. You can still call a sighted volunteer directly from the Be My AI tab. You can also find “Describe with Be My AI in the share sheet so you’ll be able to get descriptions of pictures in your photo’s, in apps and around the web.
In order to spread the word about this technology far and wide, Be My AI would very much appreciate testimonials and stories about how you have found ways to use this technology to improve your life. If you have stories you’d like to share, please post to your social media channels with the #BeMyAI Thats #Be My AI so screen readers can pronounce it correctly. Some ideas for what you might think about sharing are:
How Be My AI has affected you and your daily life.
Have you found any interesting ways Be My AI can help you understand your world?
Has Be My AI been able to help you complete previously difficult or impossible tasks?
Have you been able to use Be My AI to make connections with the people around you and feel more included in the visual world?
How do you feel about having an app that can describe your world in so much detail?
How do you see Be My AI fitting into your life and improving what it means to live with sight loss?
Any and all stories and testimonials would be greatly appreciated, Either
Video’s of you using Be My AI.
Video’s of you talking about your experiences with Be My AI.
Audio recordings of you talking about how you are using Be My AI.
Written testimonials about using Be My AI.
Be My Eyes will be promoting your video’s and written testimonials.
Let’s get Be My AI trending and raise awareness about this new technology.
Comments
it's the best information…
it's the best information.
Welcome in new worldd for blind peoples
Very Exciting But It Will Take Time For Everyone To Get Access
As Andy stated, BeMyAI will be going public as of today. Everyone will not get access all at once. 10 percent of Be My Eyes users will be added per day. This is to make sure that everything works as expected and to make sure systems don't break. Once everyone in the Be My Eyes community is added new users will then be added.
Already Submitted a Story via Email But...
Thanks Andy. I already emailed the BME team with my experience calling a live volunteer to get assistance with my inaccessible thermostat. But I will definitely try to get the word out more. As far as how I've been using Be My AI, mostly to get the nutritional info on various things from my refrigerator. I posted about this on my website but I'll say it here too. One thing I like about this app is that even though the photos which I've taken have been blurry, Be My AI has been happy to attempt to describe them for me whereas the other apps I've tried don't see a thing. I am hoping that my parents will allow me to get one of the newer phones, so that I can take better pictures. Hint hint: Cost is becoming a major issue. That said, this app is very easy to use and I for one am so thankful that it is free. I may not be the best photo taker in the world at this point, but BME and other similar apps are certainly revolutionizing life for us and that's awesome.
This is awesome!!!
This is great news and I cant wait to be able to try it out. I have quietly been following discussions on here about this so this is awesome.
Congratulations
A big congratulations and thank you to everyone involved in this unbelievable free tool. I'm not really much of a social media user but will have a think about doing something when I have a little time free for figuring it out, and maybe once I've spent a little more time exploring what it can do. But so far, I love what it can do and know I've only scratched the surface.
Good work, Andy!
Andy, thank you for making this announcement and for your work beta testing BeMyAI. Smile. Now, when may we expect your BeMyAI podcast?
Next questions, on average, and I'm sure this depends in part on the IOS version and the type of iPhone being used, how long does it take the onboard AI to respond once you have submitted the photo? Do you expect this response time to be shortened in the near future?
Once again, good work, Andy!
Bruce
My paper on the legal issues
Shameless publicity alert: I am delivering a paper to a Unesco AI conference specifically about the faces in photos issue and how, as a matter of law, we might resolve it. Paper is designed for a non-legal audience. Anyone interested, just shout and i can make it available.
Bruce.
I can’t say I’ve ever thought of doing a podcast. I’ll give it some thought. I don’t have a good microphone though. I think I’ll sit this one out and maybe give it a go in the future. As for response times. It’s between 3 and 8 seconds on average I’d say it’s usually toward the lower end but can occasionally take quite a while. It’s worth the wait though and BME are definitely trying to get the time down as low as possible. I think it depends much less on the phone you’re using than you might imagine. During beta testing I saw it reliably at 2 - 3 seconds but the more they try to make the model give more useful information the slower it will be. I think things will speed up over the next year or so as more GPU’s are manufactured and added to OPEN AI’s data centres.
Bingo Little
I'd be interested in reading it. bbh@mind.net
Thanks,
Bruce
Andy
Thanks, Andy. Good information.
One last question. You mentioned music being played while we wait for the response after submitting the photo. Do we have the option of maintaining silence during the wait?
Joy!
Bruce
Bingo.
If you would like to email me, I can put you in touch with Clay at Be My Eyes. He’s their legal person. It might make sense to join forces. I’d love to read the paper either way. andylanesemail@gmail.com
Joshua.
Android beta is running at the moment if you want to register for it. I’m sure they’d appreciate your feedback.
Bruce.
At the moment, It’s just a pleasant tune but we’ve already submitted feedback that some might prefer haptic feedback. I know development will have been slowed down a bit while the face processing issue was resolved but hopefully updates will start coming in thick and fast. It’s in the queue though.
Slack for Open Beta
Hopefully we will be able to access this now that Be My AI is in open beta.
My understanding.
I believe they would prefer to keep it closed for the time being at least. They would like as much feedback as people want to provide but managing 10’s of thousands of people in a slack channel would be a full time job for someone and I don’t think they’ve got the manpower to spare on that. It’s all hands to the pumps trying to make Be My AI as good as it can be. They are also working on lots of other advocacy projects which we will all benefit from. If you have feedback, send it to them through the email address on their website. I know they value ideas from the community and want to hear about bugs people are experiencing.
Joshua.
Had to get some help on this one as I’m not an android user but here’s how to do it.
You have to make sure your Google play, the device, and Be My Eyes are all signed into the same account. Then you have to search for Be My Eyes in the Google play store and there’s an option in there that says get the beta or join the beta or something like that. Once you click that it takes a few minutes for it to add you to the beta program.
I hope that works.
Love the possibilities
So, without giving too much personal information away, one of my sisters sent me a gift about a week or so ago. With that gift, she also sent me a card. Usually when I get a card, I would use something like seeing AI to scan it and just get a quick description of any texts and or imagery that's on there. However, since I have been a part of the closed beta for a little while now, I was able to use be my AI to scan the card, and I was able to tell my sister exactly what was on the card, including the hand written message that she wrote inside the card.
Needless to say, she was almost in tears that I was able to describe the card and read the message to her without cited assistance. And thus ends my feel good story for today. 🫡
Weird descriptions
I get some weird, overly detailed descriptions but it's good to gather information about something. Just gotta be precise with the camera.
WellF
Yep you’ll occasionally get some strange descriptions but not too often. You’ll also get some incorrect information presented with absolute confidence sometimes. These are known as hallucinations which I’m not keen on but thats another subject. For this reason it’s not a good idea to use Be My AI for something that could cause danger if it was described incorrectly, medicine is a good example. Being as accurate with the camera as possible will definitely help and try to keep your hand as still as possible when you take the photo. Interestingly, you can get Be My AI to help you with your photography skills if you’d like. You can ask it questions about how to make the photo better so it gets a clearer view of what you’re trying to capture. It’s usually pretty good at helping you out.
One of the things I also…
One of the things I also like to do is paste the descriptions as captions on my social media posts instead of having to write my own in. I think it helps people become aware of this feature and how cool it is.
Troy.
We have already requested a way to export photo’s from Be My AI with the description already attached as alt text. This should make your job a little easier. I don’t know when it will be or if it will be included but fingers crossed.
Re: Troy 1
I'd never post these descriptions. They're informative, sure, but they're pretty messy too. I also don't trust them enough not to give them to a sighted person to proofread it, so I think it's better just to ask someone to describe my photos if I want them out online.
descriptions on social media
If I ever post pictures on social media, I often have it write a version with names and include the key details. I also include them in the alt text area for each individual photo so only blind people will see them.
AIRA and BE My Eyes
First of all! This looks pretty neat. I'll have to check this feature out soon. Second, this question is for folks who have used both Be My Eyes and AIRA. I have only used AIRA, but have not used for a long time. All I know about Be My Eyes so far is it is operated by volunteers. Whereas AIRA has paid, trained agents. So besides that difference, tell me the key differences between the two platforms? I may want to give BME a spin and might promote it to folks here in Cambodia. At least the folks who can speak English anyway.
Sincerely,
Vanna
For Apple khmer
Unless things have changed, Be My Eyes, I'm not much on the abbreviations people use on here, had issues with some nonEnglish speakers as volunteers, granted this was years ago. I've tried the access and it's interesting. Yes it would be good to attach the captions but this is the first of many people having access, so time will tell. I will say I don't trust anything but someone paid and trained professionally having signed an NDA, with things like private banking info, medical records and the like. I'm sorry as good as this is, personal information should at least be protected legally somehow, at least in America where I am.
follow up on my paper
Thanks to those who have expressed interest - it is an online video presentation but also a transcript. I believe the video belongs to Unesco rather than to me so I will circulate the transcript, once the conference itself has been delivered. Andy, good point about joining forces. i was only given 20 minutes maximum by Unesco so my main aim was to raise awareness of our issue at a UN level and get people talking, so it necessarily is not that granular as to the detail, but it's a start.
Bingo.
Be My Eyes are doing a lot of advocacy work for the blind community in bringing this product to market there are hurdles they’ve had to jump over. I also know of advocacy they’re doing around accessibility standards on the web. With your legal qualifications I’d imagine they’d be interested, Everyone talks about lived experience and its great that is becoming more valued but having someone with lived experience and subject expertise is hopefully even more valuable.
Improving accuracy
Have tried this for a few images and I really like the results so far, and seeing as this is just the beginning for this kind of technology it looks promising.
A question however, what is the best way to report when the AI is incorrect about something (I for example had a window identified as a door) to improve the accuracy for everyone? Is it best to "correct" the AI by telling it is wrong or does Be My Eyes want that kind of feedback some other way?
Error
I'm only getting an error message after taking a photo: "Failed to analyze image"
Blindpk
Sadly I don’t think Be My Eyes are at the point of mining historical interactions for future improvements but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen in the mid term. For now though I’d send feedback to Be My Eyes directly. If you did want to correct Be My AI, I reckon that will go into a data set at some point in the future though, I’ve been doing it myself. I just know it’s not being used yet.
AppleForAll
Is it still happening? Mine is working.
Re: Blindpk
Thanks Andy for the clarification, than I'll possibly do a little bit of both. Seeing as OpenAI soon will release their image recognition for ChatGPT, they'll soon have a lot more users that will report things about that technology, so hopefully Be My Eyes will be able to utilize that in the future.
Andy Lane
Yes. I hear the typical camera sound and then there's just this error message.
Suggestion for Be My Eyes
Hi again everybody. I'm back with a suggestion, and yes I'm going to write the wonderful Be My Eyes team about this too. I'm wondering how others feel about expanding the "Rate experience" screen? I'm referring to the one that comes up immediately after a call with a human volunteer or after a session with Be My AI. For instance, after the Yes and No buttons there could be some type of a rating scale. Or perhaps when one presses Yes there could be an edit field or something. What got me thinking about this was the experiences I've had with the app as a whole. Don't get me wrong: this is a fantastic app and I greatly appreciate being able to beta-test with everyone. However, as I've mentioned previously my photo-taking skills aren't yet that good. In addition, it would be neat to rate our experiences on a scale from 1-10. and then expand on that if desired.
I might be in the minority here
I'm not much of a fan of rating things. I just want to get the job done, yes it helped, no it didn't. I'm perfectly capable of leaving feedback. Of course if this goes through and there is a rating option, it would be nice to be able to have a leave feedback button. this is my personal opinion seeing as though I value companies need feedback, I would rather do it myself then be asked to do it without a way to bypass it.
Ratings.
Way back in the beta cycle I suggested a few tweaks to this screen to help data mining but they aren’t really doing that yet. All they are doing at the moment is looking at the I had a problem records to see how they can improve Be My AI. A sophisticated data mining records using AI may be something they do eventually but theres a lot of other things they want to get to first and this would be a massive project. The potential of mining that data is vast especially when an AI can be self improving but not at the top of the development hopper.
AppleForAll
As I’ve never had this issue come up I can’t offer anything more than the generic restart your phone first then delete the app and re-install as potential solutions to this problem. I’d suggest getting in touch with Be My Eyes if the generic advice doesn’t work. There may be something specific to your account they can see but I’d go with the generic stuff first as it usually fixes most problems.
It could just be a use case
I was taking a few pics outside, out of curiosity. I found after a few, the wait times got longer, then it timed out. I attribute that to more people getting access, and the servers and such about to puke. Lol. as we know, it's the first of many weeks people are gaining access, so I'd restart, wait a few hours maybe then try again.
Siobhan.
If you were sending all those pictures in the same thread I may be able to help you speed things up. Each time you take a new photo and or send another message it actually uploads the entire thread of messages and photo’s with each new photo or message you send. So you aren’t actually sending 1 photo or question, you’re sending the entire thread, every time. This is why it will get slower and slower the longer the thread gets. It has to be this way so Open AI can see the entire thread so the AI can answer your most recent request while keeping the rest of them in mind as they might still be relevant. Just like a conversation between 2 people. If each new request forgot the previous one, we’d be in a bit of a mess. The solution however is really simple. Once you know you don’t need to refer back to anything that has already passed or the thread is getting too slow. Just clear and start fresh. You’ll get the faster responses back again. I imagine in time, Open AI will be able to hold that thread on their servers so you can just send your most recent question or photo and it will still see the rest without uploading each time but that hasn’t happened yet. It’s the same on the Chat GPT app and Bing. They all upload everything every time.
Question
Ok so I have the Be My AI tab now. I take a pic of anything even had sighted help and says failed to analyze immage. Even when I go to my photos and tap on describe with be my AI doesnt work. Is it doing this with anybody else? or what is going on?
Illinois
There is a law in this State regarding privacy that makes sure faces are not descriptive in AI or something similar.
MsHollyWeezy
Hey, you shouldn’t be having that problem even if you are in Illinois. Try closing the app, even restarting your phone. All the usual stuff, could even try re-installing the app if you’d like but if that doesn’t work then send a quick email to support. They are really helpful. I did have 1 picture fail earlier. Possibly because of increased demand with all the new people joining. It’s an enormous expansion in a very short period of time so the odd failure is understandable until they learn how to cope with the enormous demand and iron out the bugs. It shouldn’t be failing repeatedly though so definitely something else going on.
Doesn’t say you are in Illinois.
Your bio says you are on mars and I don’t think they have passed any outdated legislation on Mars that should prohibit Be My AI so you should be okay. Haha.
Not in Illinois
Hi. Thank you both for your answers. I am not in Illinois but I will try deleting and reinstalling the app. I understand its probably a lot of demand too. Thanks again.
Happening from time to time
When it does, I just clear or end the chat and start a new one and that usually makes it work as expected again. I'm guessing it is related to increasing demand.
Julian.
Its always a good idea to clear the chat every now and then, maybe every 5 - 10 messages unless you need it to know about something further up the thread to be able to answer question. The reason is that every time you send a message or photo, it uploads the entire thread, every time. So if your thread is 50 messages long with 20 photo’s and you send a photo, it has to upload 26 photo’s and 50 messages. This is so that it understands the thread and can make the answer relavant to anything you’ve asked for earlier on in the thread. Open AI don’t yet hold the thread on their servers. With Chat GPT it’s the same but you don’t notice the delay because it’s all just text. with BMAI it obviously includes photo’s which take a lot more time to upload. I just refresh the thread every 5 messages or so. it really speeds it up and cuts down on the error messages.
adult content moderation
Any further updates on this? It's marking of sensitive material leaves much to be desired here and I'm wondering whetehr BME are working on a solution.
Michael.
To my knowledge this is being actively worked on however I wouldn’t expect a solution next Wednesday. Realistically this is going to take some time. What I can tell you is that everyone who would be involved in making this happen, wants to make this happen. There is nobody saying no however it’s a very sensitive issue that is going to require careful consideration and is likely to take some time. What should be allowed, what is absolutely not okay under any circumstances. These are most definitely not easy questions to answer and will take some serious efforts. Nothing like this has ever been possible before so it’s all new ground people are treading on. My personal opinion is, we’ve got something incredible right now and all the right people are working on making it everything we could ever hope it would be this includes developments ranging from adult content to full video support and much much more. Sadly Rome wasn’t built in a day but my god have we got some great builders on the case.
Just to preempt the comment that everything should be allowed and how dare they choose whats okay. If you have a think about it for a minute. i’m confident we can all come up with things we’d never want described in a million years. Things that are repellant illegal and we’d all rather didn’t exist in the world. Part of the problem is going to be ensuring that type of situation can’t happen. This is a very complicated problem to solve which is why I wouldn’t expect it to happen quickly. Patience will be needed on this one.
I saw someone posting on…
I saw someone posting on facebook about the faces thing and they did bring up a good point. Be my AI apparently described someone's hair as "dirty" while I wouldn't get offended by this I can see how a description like that could and would offend someone out there because we are now living in a world where everyone gets offended over everything. Back a few years ago we may have not been in this battle at all.
Troy.
This has been an ongoing conversation since the early days and the result is something along the lines of whats the point in describing something to a blind person if you can’t describe reality. If I ask if my hair is dirty and it says no your hair looks perfectly clean when actually it looks filthy then theres no point in asking. If I’m trying to get ready to go to work and I ask if I look good and it says you look wonderful when I’ve actually got a stain on my shirt then again not so good. There are literally endless situations we can think of where not wanting to cause offence would be the easy route to take but completely useless as a tool to describe the world to blind people. I think we’re going to all need to put on our big boy pants for this one and recognise that reality can be offensive but having reality described is the point of the app. It’s a tool to access a visual world and so should be accurate not political.