Ethical AI & “Benevolent Friction”: Rethinking Alternative Text in WordPress: Deneb Pulsipher

Generative AI tools are flooded with promises of automated accessibility shortcuts, but fully automated, “hands-off” alt text often fails blind and low-vision users by missing context or introducing inaccuracies.

This presentation uses a real-world case study—the open-source plugin Polly Alt—to explore how we can ethically leverage generative AI as an accessibility aid by intentionally keeping a human in the loop.

We will look at how we can design user interfaces that use benevolent friction within Gutenberg, Elementor, and the WordPress Media Library to make it completely frictionless for site administrators to write or edit alt text, while making it gently difficult to publish empty image descriptions.

Additionally, we’ll discuss how AI shouldn’t just do the work for lazy administrators, but should act as an accessibility training tool—using multi-subject angles and screen-reader context boxes to teach content creators how to draft high-quality visual descriptions on their own over time.

Attendees will walk away from this presentation with a clear understanding of:

1. The Human-in-the-Loop Imperative: Why fully automated AI accessibility overlays and silent background scripts fail, and how to build software that enforces human review, human editing, and final content ownership.
2. The Mechanics of Benevolent Friction: How to identify key intercept points in the WordPress admin interface (such as save hooks, post-publishing routines, and page exits) to guide users toward accessible habits naturally.
3. Repurposing UI for Accessibility Training: Practical examples of how providing contextual feedback—like multi-subject variations and immediate screen-reader character constraints—can improve the user’s real-world understanding of digital accessibility standards.