This post is based on my ongoing ethnographic research project on AI in disability research. It grew directly out of my own field notes and reflection notes, and out of extended conversation with an AI tool as part of that project. This is the first publication from the project, and I anticipate that several more pieces of writing will follow — including peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and additional blog posts. I stand by everything written here. This is my thinking, my voice, and my argument. The AI was part of the process that produced it, as it is documented to be in the project itself, and I mean that transparency fully.
I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about artificial intelligence and what it means for people with intellectual disabilities. I want to be clear from the start: I am not talking about AI as a cure, a fix, or a replacement for human support. I am talking about something more interesting than that. I am talking about AI as a tool for self-determination.
Let me explain what I mean by that — and why I said self-determination instead of independence.
In disability services, independence has long been held up as the goal. The idea is that a person with a disability should strive to need as little support as possible. The less help you need, the better you are doing. I have always found this framing troubling. It implies that needing support is a deficit, and that the ideal life is one where you need no one. That is not just unrealistic for people with disabilities — it is unrealistic for all of us. None of us live without support. The question is never whether we need support. The question is whether we have agency over our own lives.
Self-determination is a different framework entirely. A person can be deeply supported and still be the author of their own life. What matters is choice, direction, and the ability to make decisions about things that matter to you. Many individuals with intellectual disabilities need support with activities of daily living — support that has traditionally come from direct support professionals, or DSPs. DSPs do important work. At their best they bring relationship, advocacy, and genuine knowledge of the person they support.
But here is where AI enters the picture in a way I find genuinely significant. For some support tasks, AI has the potential to allow a person with an intellectual disability to get what they need without requiring a human intermediary. This might mean using an AI tool to help navigate a schedule, draft a message, think through a decision, or access information. The support is still there — it is just restructured. And in that restructuring, something meaningful can happen. The person gets to interact more directly with their own life, on their own terms, at their own pace.
That is not independence in the old sense. It is something better. It is supported self-determination with the person in the driver's seat.
I want to be honest about the risks too, because I think about those as well. AI does not know a person the way a good DSP does. It does not notice when something is wrong that is not in the prompt. It does not push back on a guardian who is making decisions that do not reflect what the person actually wants. And the issue of guardianship matters here — I believe strongly that guardianship should be a last resort, not a default. When we assume that people with intellectual disabilities cannot direct their own lives, we make it easier to justify systems that remove rather than support their agency. AI, if it is designed and used well, can push back against that assumption in a quiet but meaningful way.
We are at an early moment in understanding what AI can actually do for people with intellectual disabilities. I do not think the answers are settled. But I think the questions are important enough to be asking out loud. This is my way of doing that. I would love to know what you think.
If you are interested in receiving a complete summary of the ethnographic research project that produced this post, I am happy to share it. Feel free to reach out by email.
