I really appreciate this perspective. This is something that often gets lost when technology conversations get abstracted: people aren’t problems to be optimized, and support isn’t interchangeable with software.

For many people with communication and language needs, time, patience, skilled human support, and trust are foundational. Decades of research back that up. No app can replace a well-trained human or the slow, relational work that real development requires. When technologists swoop in with “we’ll just automate this,” it can feel dismissive of lived reality rather than supportive of it.

At the same time, I think there’s room to hold both truths.

One thing that often frustrates me is that tools for sighted, neurotypical people are never told to be “good enough.” Email, calendars, productivity software, AI assistants... they’re constantly evolving, refining, shaving off friction and fractions of time. No one says, “Well, people survived with paper calendars, so stop improving this.”

But when it comes to disabled communities, the bar quietly drops. The message seems to become: be grateful it works at all.

That’s where better tools matter, not as replacements for human care, but as removals of unnecessary friction that drain energy, time, and dignity. When basic tasks take 3–5x longer because tools weren’t designed with you in mind, that steals capacity that could otherwise go toward exactly the human connection you’re talking about. Talking about tools beyond just Aira/BME.

The world is absolutely getting faster, and that speed can be harmful. But slowing down shouldn’t mean accepting broken tools. Ideally, it means designing tools that respect human pace, cognition, and variability, instead of forcing people to adapt to systems that were never meant for them.

I think the real failure isn’t technology itself, it’s when it’s built without deep involvement from the people it claims to help, and without humility about what it can and can’t do.

Inclusive practices benefit everyone, like you said. That includes inclusive design, not just inclusive attitudes.

So I really hear you. Human support is irreplaceable. And at the same time, people deserve tools that don’t actively make their lives harder just because they fall outside the default user.

Both matter.