Is All-Blind Narration the Future of Audio Description for Films & TV?

“He looks ahead, his dark eyebrows overshadowing his dark eyes. One of his several gold teeth gleams in the dim light.”

This is the audio description for a scene from a limited series called The Penguin from Max, a part of the Warner Brothers group. This isn’t just another AI-generated audio description of a visual scene, it was created by an all-blind and visually impaired team of actual humans who could describe the scene based on a combination of notes and scene descriptions from the original script of the show. It’s an unusual choice in an industry that is increasingly turning to automation for production tasks.

The story does highlight the long-understood idea that people who lack one sense may develop near extreme abilities to compensate as their brain rewires itself.

It is also a great reminder that despite the pace of technological advances, there may still be some jobs better completed by real, feeling people. It’s a conclusion you might also take away from the recent study which found self-driving taxis are slower and more expensive than human-powered ride sharing services. We’ll take the win. It’s still nice to see any evidence that humans still have the edge.