[BlindMath] Areas still to work on?

Sun May 31 20:40:23 UTC 2026

Well, symbols with multiple meanings is not only a math problem.  Is it "ree-CORD" or "RECK-ord"? for example.    

We always have to use our own independent intelligence when reading what screen readers say.  

Ray. 

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Neil Soiffer via BlindMath
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2026 3:59 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Neil Soiffer <soiffer at alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Areas still to work on?

Two different replies in one...

@Ken: I co-wrote a paper to be presented at ICCHP this summer where my co-authors and I examined the state of AI to both produce braille from MathMl and also to convert braille to MathML. We looked at both Nemeth and UEB. The good news is that the models are improving rapidly -- there was ~15% improvement from Gemini 2.5 to 3.1 in a 9 month period. GPT 5.4 was worse than Gemini by upto 20%. The open-weight models were significantly worse even when given hundreds of thousands of examples. Without lots of training examples (2000+) for the commercial models, the results weren't good (30% - 70% depending on the model/direction/code). In other words, their native knowledge of braille is poor. The best results with Gemini 3.1 achieved 92% correctness over 200 tests. Some downsides are the slowness to get an answer, the flakiness of the answers (it's not deterministic), and also, at least for trying to run multiple tests at once, the flakiness of the AI to even give a response. And there is the cost also... I'm hoping to put the paper up on arXiv soon.

Re: Ray's original question about what work can be done:

In MathML 4, we've added the ability for authors to disambiguate speech.
For example |x| could be absolute value, determinant, or cardinality. For higher level math, there are other interpretations. The only person who truly knows what a piece of math should be spoken as is the author. In the absence of author input, MathCAT and a few other systems make educated guesses (capital letter -> determinant, etc). But they are just guesses.
Intent can also be used on operators such as "×" (times, cross-product, by, ...). With MathML 4, authors have a way of conveying the meaning to a screen reader. LaTeX now has a way for the author to indicate the speech and pass it along to MathML, but it is a bit awkward at the moment. I believe the plan is to fold that into current macro packages and maybe even come up with a speech macro package so that "abs" gets added and "det" has speech specified.

MathML defines a core concept list
<https://w3c.github.io/mathml-docs/intent-core-concepts/>. which is a list that all screen readers should know how to speak (and translate to other languages). MathML 4 is at the point where we are asking for feedback on what needs to change, so that list is a good place to start. Is there something missing or something wrong? In addition to this list, there is an "open" list where anyone can add a (non-conflicting) concept name. The open list *might* be adopted by a screen reader and is a source for potentially bringing names into the core concept list. We are still working on a mechanism so people can easily add their notation, but that's not ready for others to try at the moment. We currently have about 1,000 entries in that list pulled from Wikipedia and other sources.

@Ray and others: it would be helpful to look at the core concept list and file a github issue for any problems you see. Once we have a good way to contribute to the open concept list (either corrections or additions), that would be another way to contribute. MathCAT supports this feature and the next release will support all of the core concepts. MathCAT is used by JAWS, NVDA, and Orca screen readers (among others), so improvements you make to those lists will show up in the screen readers many people use.

Neil Soiffer

On Sun, May 31, 2026 at 11:24 AM Ken Perry via BlindMath < blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> I would agree and I wrote an expression parser once in python for fun.
> With that said.  We are at a breaking point. The new AI models that 
> are popping up will be able to do much more better. True right now 
> they are non deterministic but the things you can make with them to do 
> what you want now and have them make it deterministic is almost 
> amazing. Two years ago I would not have said this but in less than 2 
> years we won't have any problem producing 2D and 3D mathematics from 
> formula's in either Nemeth or Ascii math.  I feel like having to be a 
> programmer to be a mathematician is just extra work and that is coming 
> from someone who currently works as a Senior Software Engineer.
>
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Ray 
> McAllister via BlindMath
> Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:11 PM
> To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics' < 
> blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Ray McAllister <raymcal at att.net>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Areas still to work on?
>
> What about the idea of using existing math coding languages that we 
> have to use anyway with computers, like Sage, Wolfram, etc?  We 
> already have to know those, and after working out a long problem, we 
> often have to test our work to see if it is correct, so we have to 
> code it into something to work in a computer.  If we had the option to 
> enter a long formula in Safe/Wolfram/Pithon, whatever, code, and then 
> the computer, which obviously knows how to read such code, would 
> convert that into 2d graphical display, which we could peruse with a 
> screen reader, that might give some options not previously available, and that would be good even for sighted people.
>
> Ray.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Ken Perry 
> via BlindMath
> Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2026 1:59 PM
> To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics' < 
> blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: kperry at blinksoft.com
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Areas still to work on?
>
> As a sighted person you may not know the speed in which your tools urn 
> matters.  Recorded speech is not the best.  A lot of the symbols 
> already speak fine with screen readers. The problem is more the 
> graphical style of math that many authors use.  We are so much farther 
> along than we were even
> 2 years ago.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jonathan 
> Fine via BlindMath
> Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2026 1:25 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics < 
> blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: Jonathan Fine <jfine2358 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [BlindMath] Areas still to work on?
>
> Hi
>
> This is a very interesting thread. I'm sighted, and reading your 
> comments educates me. I'm trained as a pure mathematician.
>
> Here are two comments regarding accessibility and mathematics as a 
> formal and highly symbolic language.
>
> The first is that the symbols used depend on the context. I think 
> having a list of relevant symbols (and their meanings) will be a great help.
>
> The second is that we could use pre-recorded or pre-generated speech 
> for the most common symbols, instead of generic text to speech.
>
> To summarize, I'm suggesting that we consider creating a mode 
> specially designed for authoring and speaking mathematics. In this 
> maths mode there can be a context, which is a short list of common or allowed symbols.
>
> I hope this is clear. I welcome comments. Please you'd like some examples.
>
> with best wishes
> Jonathan
> _______________________________________________
> BlindMath mailing list
> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> BlindMath:
>
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/kperry%40blinks
> oft.com
> BlindMath Gems can be found at <
> http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BlindMath mailing list
> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> BlindMath:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/raymcal%40att.n
> et
> BlindMath Gems can be found at <
> http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BlindMath mailing list
> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> BlindMath:
>
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/kperry%40blinks
> oft.com
> BlindMath Gems can be found at <
> http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> BlindMath mailing list
> BlindMath at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> BlindMath:
>
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/soiffer%40alum.
> mit.edu
> BlindMath Gems can be found at <
> http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>
>
_______________________________________________
BlindMath mailing list
BlindMath at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindmath_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for BlindMath:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindmath_nfbnet.org/raymcal%40att.net
BlindMath Gems can be found at <http://www.blindscience.org/blindmath-gems-home>