[mtrimpe]

Human assistants might also just be worse than AI assistants.

When I received my first (and only) BeMyEyes request I spent the first minute or so figuring out how to work the app and the video delay.

“Let me turn the volume up” “Oh wait it’s on my AirPods” “Could you move it more to the left?” “No your left.” “No; not that far”

I’m quite confident that I was a less than optimal assistant and an AI might’ve well done better than me.

[addaon]

It sounds like as part of the sign-up they should ask an experienced helper to make an "artificial" request of the new signee, to give them a chance to see the workflow and to provide an opportunity ask questions of someone who's been in the role that they've signed up for. If there's really an excess of helpers, generating one extra request per new future helper seems reasonable.

[mtrimpe]

I’d guess that they have a rating system and prefer assigning request to helpers who reliably perform well… which might be why I didn’t get repeat requests after my initial fumbling.

[addaon]

Sure, and that's an important tool for improving quality in the face of different skill levels / levels of effort. But that's independent of investing a bit in improving the skill level across the helper base; as you experienced, it's something where experience helps, and if your first time in the real flow is with an actual request, there's no way to avoid the helper needing to deal with both helping and learning simultaneously.

[dmazzoni]

And that's just one more thing that blind people don't want to have to deal with when they just want to go about their lives.

Humans are slow and unreliable. AI is fast and consistent.

Both are imperfect. You shouldn't rely on either one for something life-or-death. Nobody is using them to decide if it's safe to cross a street.