re:publica: AI and neurodiversity

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If André Frank Zimpel wants to divide, say, 60 by 4, then he sees before him how a gray "60" meets a green "4" and the 60 breaks down into a light green 40 and a golden 20. Then the 40 breaks down again into an almost transparent 10, and the golden 20 breaks down into a blue 5; and both result in a light blue 15. Zimpel is a synaesthete and therefore neurodivergent.

He is also a psychologist and teaches as a professor at the University of Hamburg, specializing in "Learning and Development". At this year's re:publica, he gave a talk on "AI and neurodiversity".

Zimpel spoke about neurodiversity in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) from two aspects in particular: On the one hand, AI means the possibility of supporting neurodivergent people. On the other hand, neurodivergent people are needed to develop AI in the first place.

Is AI more intelligent than us? Are we offended?

There is a cult of intelligence in our (Western) culture. In others, says Zimpel, it's about honor, for example. If you want to insult someone there, you insult their mother; in "us", on the other hand, you might call them a "fool".

And AI can cause a certain amount of discomfort: if it's "smarter" than you, it's easy to get offended. But perhaps we need to retell the story of human intelligence, he says: do we allow ourselves to be offended by AI or do we learn from it?

For example, ChatGPT scored an IQ of 155 in an IQ test - better than 99.9 percent of human participants. However, there were also a few funny mistakes, and the logical thinking didn't always work out so well, reports Eka Rovainen, the clinical psychologist who carried out the experiment.

The professor had also experienced something similar himself: he wanted to write a rap and needed months. (He performed it and promptly received a round of applause.) But then his daughter showed him an app that wouldn't have taken him a minute. That was a bit off-putting, he admitted, but AI could be useful after all.

AI to support neurodivergent people

The neurodiversity spectrum includes people with autism spectrum disorder, AD(H)S, dyscalculia (dyscalculia), dyslexia (dyslexia), dyspraxia (motor disorders), epilepsy or Tourette's syndrome. They feel, think and act differently than usual - more precisely: than is usually expected by the social norm. This does not mean that they are not completely right in the head, but some abilities can be crucial in everyday life. And that's where AI can help.

Zimpel cites a whole series of examples of such support. It starts quite banal with Word's spelling correction for people with dyslexia. He also talks about his work with people on the autism spectrum. "They perceive so much that they don't realize that words that we perceive as the same are the same." For example, if you say the word "car" twice, it sounds slightly different each time. No problem for the average person, but an autistic child doesn't understand the differences. "Children like this take years to learn to speak," he said. They often only learn at the age of six - "but then they often speak in complete sentences". This is because they have "cracked" the system; Zimpel cited the example of a mentally disabled man who was initially unable to speak for a long time, but then mastered seven languages as an adult. Technology could help with the pronunciation problem by having a computer say the word "car" - it always sounds the same.

Neurodivergent people in the development of AI (and other things)

But: artificial intelligence "works with recombined averaging. The more powerful AI becomes, the better it will become at elevating the average to a benchmark." And this "mediocrity" is a "big problem", says Zimpel. His only hope is for neurodivergent people to avoid this. He therefore sees a great future for these people.

In the USA, for example, it has now been established that AI development cannot progress without neurodivergent people. In Europe, too, said Zimpel: in cities where IT is established, there are twice as many schoolchildren on the autism spectrum as elsewhere. Probably their parents too - and they developed IT.

In 2011, the National Symposium on Neurodiversity was held at Syracuse University. It was there that the neurodiversity movement was formed, as an association of people with many forms of what is considered "neurodivergence". Zimpel hopes that this movement "could develop a similar power to 'Black is beautiful', 'Gay is good' and 'Sisterhood is powerful' in the 1960s and 70s." It could help to improve society.

(mho)