Why I, as an Accessibility Advocate, refuse to use AI flyers.

I know that AI is a hot topic and while it isn't all bad, it has permeated our society in a way that outpaces our government, our schools and even ourselves when it comes to sustaining a functional society, and that is troubling to say the least. It is entirely possible that this is just a rant, and I am simply an old woman (in my 30s, so not ancient) screaming into the void of change and inevitability, but I HATE AI flyers. They are the advertising equivalent to Cocomelon (yes, I hate that too, with good reason), and they're not accessible to individuals with sensory processing disorders.

Back in my day of the late 1900s and early 00s, we left space on the page of a flyer. In fact for most advertising, the standard practice was K.I.S.S. or "keep it simple stupid/keep it short and simple". You wanted bold statements, flashy graphics and to get your point across while always leaving space for your advert to breathe and marinate in the minds of your intended audience. Essentially, less is more.

Naturally over time, styles will grow and change to connect with a public that is also growing and changing, and that makes total sense. Platforms like Adobe Express and Canva, have done great things to make graphic design accessible to everyday people who simply cannot afford to pay a company to do this work for them (in this economy?!). Even I admittedly use Canva for so much of the work I'm doing in my personal and professional life.

The issue is when we let AI do all the work. For now, we will gloss over the usual suspects when we say "AI is bad". Yes, it's making us lazy. Yes, it's eventually dumbing us down. Of course it's helping to herald a new era of cyber crime with deep-fakes. Yes, it's absolutely unsustainable financially as we look at how much major tech companies are dumping into AI as the next big thing with minimal return (because NFTs taught us nothing apparently). Of course it's unsustainable ecologically, have you looked at how much clean water a solitary prompt requires? Definitely not winning any votes for the climate crisis team.

The biggest, most fundamental issue here, for the sake of this blog post is, yes to all of that AND AI is dumb. It exists to try and think like a human being, but it's actually forcing the opposite to happen to try to meet AI where it is. And you think, "great! I'm thinking more like a machine! I'll be more efficient and smarter". No. Not at all. Machines rely on prompts to function and lack the ability to discern between what is accurate and what is inaccurate or how much information is too much.

Again we are not machines. Our brains need space to process things, and some of us need more space than others.

Let's take a look at a random AI flyer. If you even gave this flyer a real look you'll see it's making some really valid points about AI flyers. This isn't even the worst I've seen, but generally I don't look at them. They all look the same, they're clunky, leaving absolutely no space and are just a sensory nightmare. Where exactly is the focal point?

Obviously these are satirical ones I found online, but looking at this makes me feel like I'm about to have a neurological event and by default I don't want to look at the details. Something in my mind tells me to actively look away from this flyer.

Let's ignore how bad this looks from a neurotypical standpoint, it literally is visual over-saturation.

The overcrowding, hyper-vibrancy, and unnatural smoothness all combine together to essentially create a sensory nightmare. The it can lead to immediate visual fatigue or cause head-aches if your eyes are more sensitive. It can even cause discomfort or nausea as a result of the "air-brushed" texture usually associated with AI.

They tend to also pack in fonts that are difficult to read, text that is too close together and often a brain with sensory processing difficulties has to work twice as hard to sus out valuable information from background noise. When you add in spacial and anatomy errors, which the brain is hardwired to recognize familiar patterns and bodily structures, the brain can be forced to pause and struggle to identify what it is seeing.

They are also inaccessible to assistive technology. According to the New York City Bar Association, "text baked directly into a chaotic AI image cannot be read by screen readers, completely isolating individuals who rely on text-to-speech software to process visual advertisements" and are known to generate non-functional QR codes or tiny text links that are physically or visually frustrating to manipulate.

At the end of the day, AI flyers are a friend to few, least of all the disabled.