Recently I've been planning another tour around the UK, and possibly beyond, to meet with different self-advocacy groups as part of the Newton Project. The work feeds into the prompts behind the AI brain in Photosymbols EasyMaker. It also contributes to the Easy Read Standard alongside other strands of our work.
I'm genuinely looking forward to it.
But I can't shake the feeling that I'm an elephant playing Twister.
I stand there with my huge feet, hesitating, wondering where to place the next step. Twister looks simple enough, coloured circles on a plastic mat, but when you're the elephant, every movement carries weight. A slight shift. A misplaced foot. A wobble that sends vibrations across the surface.
The mat in this case isn't a game. It's the self-advocacy movement, groups balancing relationships with funders, local authorities, commissioners and communities, often under difficult financial circumstances. The surface is already under tension. People are already stretched into positions they wouldn't choose.
And now there's AI
Photosymbols, and the work that came before it, has had a 30-year relationship with self-advocacy groups. We've seen long-stay hospitals close. We've seen Valuing People. We've seen COVID-19. We've seen funding cycles tighten and shift. But we haven't seen anything like the rise of AI.
Some of the opportunities are extraordinary. We've had to ban the word "game-changing" from team meetings. We're proud of EasyMaker. It does things that would have taken hours and reduces them to minutes.
That's exactly where the discomfort begins.
If we create tools that fast-track processes, even processes that involve asking people for their views, what happens to presence? What happens to respect?
There was a time when people would dress properly, turn up in person, and respectfully ask for opinions. Hopefully they would listen. They would sit in the room alongside people with learning disabilities.
If we make it possible for someone to sit at home in a tracksuit, on a sofa, and turn out an Easy Read version of a complex document without consultation - is something eroded?
We have no interest in building tools that exclude people from processes that affect them. We don't want to make it easier for organisations to bypass self-advocates. That simply isn't good enough.
The genie is out of the bottle
And yet here we are.
The genie is out of the bottle. AI brings time dividends. It reduces friction. It accelerates workflows. But are those gains coming at the expense of respect and courtesy? At the expense of properly listening to self-advocates?
These are not abstract questions for us. We discuss them regularly within the team, with expert advisers, with self-advocacy groups and with our wider networks.
Back to Twister
Which brings me back to Twister.
The mat is in front of us. It's our turn.
If we don't step forward, someone else will. The technology isn't going away. The question isn't whether AI will enter this space. It's who will shape how it enters.
Will they have a long-term relationship with the self-advocacy movement? Will they have a track record of paying groups and expert advisers properly? Will they co-produce? Will they support people to navigate these technologies rather than be displaced by them? Will they centre photos of real people in their tools?
Leaning forward, clumsy but deliberate, with the grace of an elephant, I look down at the mat.
The only way to move is to place the foot carefully. To ask where it should land. To check who is already standing there. To make sure the weight strengthens rather than destabilises.
An elephant cannot pretend to be light.
But it can choose to tread with awareness.
