Use of LLMs in preparing accessible scientific papers
Allison Doami, Christine James, Dan Lu, Lia Prins, Annette Torrence, Boris Veytsman

TL;DR
This paper explores the feasibility of using large language models for zero-shot conversion of arXiv papers to improve accessibility, highlighting challenges and discussing alternative solutions.
Contribution
It presents an initial attempt at zero-shot conversion of scientific papers' formatting using LLMs, revealing limitations and proposing future directions.
Findings
Conversion is possible but unreliable
Zero-shot approach has significant challenges
Alternative methods are needed for better accessibility
Abstract
Making scientific papers accessible may require reprocessing old papers to create output compliant with accessibility standards. An important step there is to convert the visual formatting to the logical one. In this report we describe our attempt at zero shot conversion of arXiv papers. Our results are mixed: while it is possible to do conversion, the reliability is not too good. We discuss alternative approaches to this problem.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsDigital Accessibility for Disabilities · Optics and Image Analysis · Mathematics, Computing, and Information Processing
