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Token Deaf Person:
Cultural Appropriation of Deaf Culture and ASL by Hearing Technologists and Programmers
It is becoming a rather common scenario:
Many non-Deaf computer science students or programmers develop an interest in gesture recognition systems and realize the potential value of creating a gesture recognition app and applying it toward language translation or ASL as a second language learning.
Such non-Deaf programmers (NDPs) eventually become aware of the need for or benefit of having authentic Deaf input, content, involvement, and/or even leadership in such endeavors.
The non-Deaf programmers begin looking for and reaching out to Deaf content creators to request permission to use the content or invite the Deaf person to get involved with the project so that the project might benefit from the Deaf person's knowledge, experience, reputation, connections, expertise in the target language, and membership in the Deaf Community.
The non-Deaf programmers often find and me due to my online presence. They praise me a bit, introduce themselves, tell me how they are building an app that will benefit the world by improving communication between non-Deaf people and Deaf people, and then ask for permission to use 30 years worth of my work.
The above scenario happens often enough that I have started to develop a template letter to respond to such requests.
I've already signed three NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) from companies that are building ASL translation apps. I've already been made a board member on more than one ASL translation app company.
One of the start-ups offered me a significant amount of equity in the company. Later they pivoted from ASL translation to wanting to become a school and were basically planning on duplicating with my current online offerings with a bit more technology and tried to assert rights to my curriculum. I wished them well, renounced the stock, and extricated myself from the company. I've worked very hard for decades to build up a curriculum and even more importantly -- a trusted reputation and credibility in the Deaf community. My community. The place my life and days are invested and enjoyed.
I've advised ASL app startups that in the not-too-distant future they will be competing against young school children creating gesture recognition apps before lunch in their elementary classes as well as mega-corps and non-profits providing access to AI-based ASL (and other visual language) translation apps for free.
Mediapipe Holistic and Tensorflow are (as of this writing) both open source (free).
Eventually, as gesture recognition becomes ubiquitous and as simple as a plug-in the value proposition of an ASL App won't be in the programming -- it will be in the content.
I am open to hiring and paying programmers to build an app (that I will own 100% of.
I am open to collaborating with programmers who will put in sweat equity to build an app that I will own 51% or more of.
Or when I get some time I'll build such an app myself as the technology becomes easier to use and less time intensive. (It seems that future versions of Chat-GPT might do some of the work for me.)
ASL apps these days are plentiful. What is in short supply though is authenticity, deep content, and reputation.
Regarding access to my content -- a number of organizations lease my content. For example, a programmer set-up a 50/50 royalty agreement for a product using my content, I own the content, he maintains the content and sells registration to students and sends me half of the profits.
Various schools pay me a set amount each semester per student enrolling in courses using my content.
In a way, Google uses my content to attract views for its advertising and then pays me a portion of the advertising fee.
You are welcome to present to me a value proposition a little less one-sided than:
1. non-Deaf programmer gets free access to 30-years of effort
2. Deaf content creator gets to give away 30-years of effort
Sincerely,
Bill
Recently in an online group a Hearing programmer asked for feedback and ideas regarding the design and potential uses of an ASL-related app.
Members of the group provided lots of great feedback.
Yet no one addressed “the elephant in the room.”
That elephant has to do with the question of "Should Hearing people be teaching and profiting off of ASL?"
.
Not too long ago in an online discussion group a person (“████████”) asked:
“Why is it incorrect for a hearing person to teach ASL?”
To which people explained that it was a matter of cultural appropriation and engaging in the ignoring of Deaf autonomy. Then a moderator (███) closed the comments and soon after in a separate thread another moderator (█████) re-posted a video of herself discussing “why Hearing people shouldn't teach ASL.” and in the video signed (and I quote) “...please, if you are Hearing don’t teach ASL” for profit or attention (clout).
███ posed the question “Maybe some help is better than no help for areas that don’t have a lot of Deaf?”
That question (somewhat disingenuously) implies that “some help” for learning doesn’t already exist in locations where there aren’t a lot of Deaf or the idea that “Deaf-generated expertise” isn’t already available to the furthest corners of the globe via existing technology (to anyone who has an internet connection).
A more incisive question would be: “Is some help from a Hearing programmer in the form of an app better than existing help from dozens of existing Deaf content creators who provide ASL content in the form of videos, websites, and one-to-one real-time tutoring – even for areas that don’t have a lot of Deaf?”
Let’s be honest that what many ASL apps offer isn’t the filling of a vacuum but rather the replacement of existing Deaf creators and teachers with automated-machine-intelligence in the form of apps.
Please do not misunderstand me or my intent in this post.
I have long since come to the conclusion that many ASL teachers (both Hearing and Deaf) are going to be replaced by machine intelligence and automation.
What programmers are doing is *inevitable* and will happen regardless of the amount or bluntness of any criticism directed at Hearing programmers via the Deaf community.
AI. Will. Take. Over.
I realize the takeover may not be imminent but it is not long in coming either.
So I extend to you my gratitude for at least having the courtesy to ask.
Literally dozens of programmers have already asked me to partner with them on gesture recognition or very similar projects.
Typically a twentysomething year-old Hearing college student learns a bit of programming and discovers various video manipulation technologies and realize that such technology could be used to build some sort of really awesome app, program, or system involving sign language. The student decides to build the basics of the app and turn it in as their project for their computer science degree.
Their buddy thinks it is really cool and the two of them decide they should commercialize this awesome idea. Neither of them actually know much about sign language but they dive in and start expanding the app, program, or system while googling around for usable ASL content and telling the world (and grant programs, programming competitions, or their school's graduation committee) about the wonderful way they are going to help, save, fix, or improve the lives of millions of poor, suffering, hearing-impaired* people with their app. (*Their words, not mine.)
The programmers reach the point where they actually need to start adding significant content to the app (instead of a few placeholder "borrowed" .mp4 files -- and they start suspecting that ASL may more complex than they thought and/or they start noticing that the Deaf Community itself doesn't seem to be embracing their wonderful idea as warmly as the mainstream media has.
Eventually they realize (or someone clues them in that) they are engaged in "cultural appropriation" due to having built an app based on the language of a community of people who have been oppressed and marginalized.
So they start looking around for a (token) Deaf person or group to bring onto their team and help them with the sign language content for their app.
I've advised ASL app startups that in the not-too-distant future they will be competing against young school children creating gesture recognition apps before lunch in their elementary classes as well as mega-corps and non-profits providing access to AI-based ASL (and other visual language) translation apps for free.
Mediapipe Holistic and Tensorflow are (as of this writing) both open source (free).
Eventually, as gesture recognition becomes ubiquitous and as simple as a plug-in -- the value proposition of an ASL App won't be in the programming -- it will be in the content.
At that point you would hope that we will circle back around to Deaf Creators being valued for their content.
Let’s not get our hopes up on Deaf content being considered valuable in the future though.
What will more likely happen is that enterprising programmers will instead use AI to scrape that content and turn it into photorealistic copies but replace the Deaf person’s face and body with an avatar or even a realistic computer generated face different from that of the Deaf creator. Deaf creators will see videos of computer generated people signing in ways that seem strangely familiar (since the signs will literally use the handshapes, positions, movement patterns, etc. of the Deaf creator). Then they will notice one of their quirks (such as a pinky extension or a rare version of a sign) showing up in the app that scraped their content. At that point the lawsuits will start because the content creator can likely prove their content was scraped and used without consent.
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A note that was posted to the Lifeprint.ASLU Facebook group:
To all programmers in this group:
You are welcome in the group.
If anyone starts attacking anyone else here it normally gets dealt with quickly by the members and mods. You’ll notice that this is a very polite and well moderated group (thanks everybody and particularly the mods!)
While you are welcome to ask questions, realize though you are basically asking “How might I best replace you in a way that doesn’t freak you out?”
If programmers want significant, timely, or time-consuming feedback then it may be time to get out your checkbook, credit-card, or Venmo info and visit the “Deaf Cooperative” group elsewhere on Facebook and hire one or more Deaf content creators.
People are also welcome to email me directly at BillVicars@aol.com but please do realize that any time by me spent in helping to create our eventual computer overlords will be less time I can devote to creating the content that those overlords will use with which to replace me.
William G. Vicars, Ed.D., (a.k.a. "Dr. Bill" of ASL University) is a former full-time, tenured, full-professor, and researcher at a Sacramento State University where he was coordinator of the American Sign Language and Deaf Studies bachelor degree program. He is Deaf. He holds an earned doctorate in Deaf Studies / Deaf Education from Lamar University in Texas, and has over 30 years of experience instructing and providing workshops in a wide variety of settings including internationally (Singapore, Guyana, etc.). His YouTube channel, https://YouTube.com/@sign-language has over 490,000 subscribers. He is the director of Lifeprint.com -- one of the world's most popular web destinations for learning about sign language and Deaf people. He is married to Deaf culture pundit Bee Vicars, MFA.
Notes:
I’m more passionate about content creation and teaching than in “running a company” (the differences in daily activities are obviously wildly dissimilar) I declined to become heavily involved with “the endeavor.” The technologists then asked me to instead become an officer in the company so that they might benefit from what I could bring to the table (name recognition, community connection, actual expertise in the target language, etc.). Eventually I agreed to be involved on a part-time basis only (due to being busy with my existing projects) and the role of “__________” was created for me.
At that time I shared my opinion (which is increasingly becoming an observation) that eventually gesture recognition would become so ubiquitous that eventually school children would be creating apps using freely available tools such as Mediapipe Holistic, etc. and that in the not-too-distant future certain large companies will bring free, or very, very, low-cost ASL recognition functionality to the public.
Prior to and since this time other companies, groups, and/or individuals had contacted me seeking advice and consultation. (It is an ongoing thing.)
Google (Alphabet), Meta, and others have had me sign non-disclosure agreements. Like the other companies I’ve had the pleasure of consulting with -- the Hearing technologists had me sign non-disclosure type documents.
Eventually my local projects and interests precluded being on the board of a startup and spending my time in meetings with potential funding sources. Teaching ASL and raising money are two different endeavors. I discussed it with the technologists and we amicably agreed that I would transition out of the board and simply remain a friendly consumer advocate for input on occasion if they have Deaf or ASL – related questions.
Typical "reach out" letter from Hearing programmer students:
Dear Dr. Bill,
I hope this email finds you well. My name is █████, and I am a final year student at ███████ University in █████. I recently came across your work on ASL University and I must say that I am truly impressed with the exceptional contribution you have made in the field of ASL sign language education.
I am currently working on a project with my colleagues that involves developing an AI software application for young children who are learning ASL sign language. Our software accepts video input and processes it to return the translation as text output. The model is designed to support alphabets, numbers, and basic phrases for translation.
As we move forward with our project, we have come to realize that incorporating a comprehensive and diverse database of ASL sign language gestures would greatly enhance the efficiency and accuracy of our AI. That is why we are reaching out to you today, in the hope that you could provide us with access to your database to train our AI model.
We would be honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with you and incorporate your database into our project. Additionally, once our software is complete, we would be delighted if you would try it out and provide us with your valuable feedback.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email, and we look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Best regards,
██████████
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