SAN DIEGO — He had issues with his vision for quite some time, but five years ago, Dr. Ron Peterson lost most of his eyesight due to continued complications of glaucoma. 

“I see very, very little. I have the faintest of vision. I guess you might say about 5%,” Dr. Peterson said. “And that threw me for a loop. It happened rather suddenly, and I was very depressed for the better part of a year.”

After losing most of his eyesight, Dr. Peterson, who has a background in engineering, began researching how AI can assist people with blindness. 

“Technology for the blind, especially with the evolution and the advance of artificial intelligence, has been very, very helpful to the blind,” he said.

As smartphones and technology have continued to evolve, AI is being used as a tool for those with vision impairment.

An app called Be My Eyes has a feature called Be My AI, which allows users to take pictures of their surroundings, and the app will explain in detail what’s in front of you. 

With new technology coming out at a rapid pace, Dr. Peterson teaches a class called Get Smart With AI at the Braille Institute in San Diego with his friend Nikki Warren, who also suffers from blindness.

Warren can use a laptop with a screen reader that tells her exactly what is on the monitor. Warren understands how necessary it is to have access to quality programs.

“On the day-to-day basis, I can’t function without technology,” Warren said. “It’s very, very important that we teach others about what resources are available to them.” 

According to the CDC, there are approximately six million people in the country suffering from vision loss, and a million people who are completely blind. Those numbers could increase in the coming years.

“It’s projected to be eight million in a couple of years, but that’s nationwide,” said Salvador Perez Quintana, who is the access technology specialist with the Braille Institute in Laguna Hills. “So it’s actually something that’s going to grow tremendously as the population ages, so we’re going to need a lot of resources.”

As AI continues to evolve in this space, Dr. Peterson believes things will be a lot different in the near future for people who suffer from blindness.

“Advanced apps, or devices that you can wear, I think could replace the white cane, and could replace the guide dog,” Dr. Peterson said. “That’s how far I things are going to go in the next few years with artificial intelligence.”