Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I am a bit of a tech optimist. Certainly, there is always the danger where technology fails but if we put the guardrails in place, how can we use technology to improve the lives and opportunities for people with a disability? That is my argument. I am conscious of the work of Adam Munder, who has done a lot of work as a deaf man around how technology can be used to help people who are deaf and who are hard of hearing. There is work being done at UCD on being able to improve understanding of Irish Sign Language. On Ms Grehan's point, as the technology is going to be there, our obligation as legislators and policymakers is to ensure it is used in the best interests of citizens and that we put the guardrails in place.

Perhaps the witnesses can talk about where they would like to see the technology. In other words, how can we ensure the technology will be able to help those with a disability, those who are hard of hearing or those who are deaf to engage more within society?

There is always the problem around bias and there is that danger. The large language models are based on the data that is fed into them. They do amplify it and it reflects the bias. Are the possibilities that we can also use AI to tackle that bias?