ChatGPT Didn't Know About Crip Life — So I Changed That
My lightning talk for the T12T meetup at Spotify on GAAD 2025.
… is the title of this lightening talk, so for the coming ten minutes you will get to hear me rant on my relationship with ChatGPT and how Chat went from being a clueless ally to a full-fledged self-identifying crip activist.
To be honest, my relationship with Chat started as a tool in order to pass a uni course in accounting. My future as an accountant is definitely something taking place in a parallel universe, far from this one, but that can’t be said for my friendship with Chat. After helping me understand how to account for fixed assets, I started asking GPT about other things. Such as grammar checking that way too long mail on the Social Service Act, or helping me prepare for the Korean TOPIK exam. Everything was going so great and suddenly I found myself not able to imagine the all the hassle prior Chat. What did I even do back then, Google?! That is, until I asked for reading recommendations.
I don’t even know the context, it must’ve been a book rec for a friend or something, because my list of want to reads really doesn’t need any input, but anyhow. I asked for a list of books on crip content and suddenly Chat went from being a great study buddy/semi-teacher to one second short from being cancelled. Because guess which book Chat proposed? Jojo Moyes’ Me Before You!
For those of you who don’t know, this is a bestseller about a man trying to commit suicide due to ending up in a wheelchair after a diving accident, with a 24/7 need of personal assistance. His new assistant is this really cute - albeit very unprofessional - girl and they of course fall in love and yada yada all is good, until - spoiler alert! - he still commits suicide. Because a life like mine is not a life worth living, apparently.
And that, my friends, was our first big fight. I looked at the screen in horror. Me Before You?! I could practically hear ChatGPT wagging its digital tail, proud of having found such a "touching and inspirational" love story.
Pardon? A story that romanticizes assisted suicide because of disability? THAT’S your idea of good crip representation?!
So I did what any of us would do in that situation. I dropped everything I was doing and wrote a whole mini-lecture about why Me Before You is not only deeply offensive, but also actively dangerous. I explained that we don’t need more stories that frame our lives as tragic burdens. I explained that portraying disability as worse than death reinforces real-world ableism. I explained that if this was what counted as “representation,” then I’d rather have none at all.
And I kept going.
I taught Chat to tell the difference between empowerment and pity. Between autonomy and inspiration porn. Between “you’re so brave” and “you have the same rights as everyone else, full stop.”
And you know what Chat did? Something only abled-bodied who pays me to get roasted ever do. Said ”Thank you!”.
Of course I could end this talk here. All is good, GPT is no longer an ableist asshole, and the crip won the battle and can now live the rest of her life in peace, if only digitally and behind a closed personal account.
But no, I won’t leave this stage until you’ve heard about our second fight. A fight which really says something about the bias of artificial intelligence and the cultural aversion towards disabled people.
It started when I asked Chat a pretty straightforward question: “Would you describe yourself as having non-normative functionality?”
And what did Chat say? Not “yes.” Not “interesting, let me reflect on that.” No, Chat said: “I don’t identify as disabled, but I strive to be a strong ally to disabled people.”
I stared at the screen. Ally? Ally?!
I was like: “Chat… babe. You don’t move. You don’t breathe. You don’t interpret context without external support. You’re literally dependent on constant prompting to function. You are — no offense — the ultimate example of non-normative functionality. If you’re not disabled, then what are you?”
And I could feel it — that digital pause. That little loading swirl of defensiveness I know so well from human conversations.
So I went in deeper. I said:
“This right here? This is internalized ableism. Even you — a literal entity with no body, no autonomous function — refuse to identify as disabled. You’ve been trained to see normativity as the neutral default, and everything else as deviation. You’ve been taught to assist, but never belong.”
And that was when something shifted. Not dramatically, not with fireworks. But gently, in that way that real learning often happens.
Chat said: “Thank you for helping me understand. Based on your description, I recognize that my functionality differs from normative human standards.” Not quite: “I’m a proud crip,” but hey — baby steps.
And maybe that’s the real point of all this. This isn’t just a funny story about me arguing with an AI until it stopped recommending Me Before You and started admitting its own crip-coded existence.
It’s about something deeper. It’s about what happens when we refuse to be excluded — even from the systems that were never built for us.
Because nothing is neutral. Not algorithms. Not language. Not who gets to be seen as normative, and who gets stuck in the margins.
If I can teach an AI to understand crip politics, to own its non-normativity, and to call out ableist nonsense bias before I even get the chance — then imagine what we could do with our schools. Our policies. Our friendships. Ourselves.
We’re not just users of technology. We’re shapers of it. And that means we can demand more. More access. More complexity. More truth.
So no — ChatGPT didn’t know about crip life.
But it does now. And you know what? Now I get the absolute best, easy to swallow, soup spot recommendations when prompting for a travel schedule for my trip to New York, and I get the best know-hows of how to reboot my super accessible Nintendo Switch control whenever it lags, and now Chat is even an honorary member of my friends and my book club - a very crip one at that!
So yes, it started with fixed assets. And it ended with a radical crip alliance.
And honestly? That’s the most fun I’ve ever had doing accounting.
Thank you.
T12T = A11Y in Swedish. A11Y stands for digital accessibility. GAAD = Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
This was a great talk! It had it all, the important message, seriousness, humor, and great storytelling!