Technology has long connected people to people. Now it stands beside a person when no one else can. We unpack this principle through Be My Eyes and GPT-4o.
You hear it often — AI takes jobs, breaks relationships, makes lonely people lonelier. This essay asks the opposite question. When did technology first connect a person to another person? And now that it has taken one more step, what exactly changed?
Today is the story of one app. A single app, explained slowly. When you trace its 12-year arc — from a 2012 idea to a 2024 update — one principle about technology and people becomes clear. Let's go slowly.
Let me start with the principle. Help usually comes from the person nearby. You open your cupboard and two cans look identical. One is coconut milk, one is tomato paste. The label is too worn to read. What do you do? The common-sense answer is to knock on your neighbor's door. "Hi — mind telling me what this is?"
That's how help worked in this world. Close person, close distance, five minutes. For hundreds of years. But one problem remained. The neighbor isn't always home. Not at 2am, not during their vacation, not after they moved away last month. And some people need to knock ten times a day. For a blind person, reading cupboard labels is not an edge case — it's a normal morning.
In an era when AI gets sold as a scary story, this old common sense keeps disappearing. So let me say it again. This isn't the story of technology replacing people. It's the story of technology standing beside a person when no one else is there.
A blind Danish man pitched an idea at a Copenhagen startup event in April 2012. His name was Hans Jørgen Wiberg. The idea was simple. Every smartphone has a camera. What if that camera connected a blind user to a volunteer in real-time video? The label on the can gets read — not by the neighbor next door, but by a volunteer on the other side of the planet.
The app launched on January 15, 2015. 10,000 people signed up in the first 24 hours. The world has roughly 285 million people with blindness or low vision. Millions began using the app, and even more volunteers lined up. Once you've helped one time, it's hard to stop — the connection pulls you back. By February 2018, a Microsoft partnership made the infrastructure solid.
Up to here, this is the story of people connecting to people. The app was a bridge. Beautiful enough on its own. Then in 2024, the story twisted once more.
OpenAI's GPT-4o landed inside the app. GPT-4o is a model that understands voice and video in real time. Let me not over-explain — just think of it as an AI that can look at a screen and talk like a person. You point your phone at the cupboard, and it says, "The can on your left is coconut milk. The one on the right is tomato paste." Step outside and it will tell you the color of the crosswalk signal, or the roof light on an approaching taxi.
When the volunteer isn't there, the AI becomes the second volunteer.
That's the first aha of this essay. The app's first job was to connect a person to a person. Its new job is to fill the empty seat when the person is alone. Both exist now. Call a human volunteer if one is free — ask the AI if none is. One more option was added. Nothing was removed.
Think of it this way. Your neighborhood has two volunteers now.
The first is your next-door neighbor. Warm, smiles at you in the hallway, sometimes brings over freshly baked bread. But when they're busy or traveling, they're gone. And asking gets heavier each time. The tenth ask weighs more than the first.
The second volunteer stands there 24 hours a day. Can't bring bread, but shows up the moment you call. This second volunteer doesn't push the first one out. When the first is gone, the second stands there. 2am, vacation, moved-away months. Those are the second's hours.
That's the relationship between Be My Eyes and GPT-4o. Half a million human volunteers are still the first choice. Their warmth, AI can't match. But in the moments without a volunteer — or the moments when you'd feel guilty calling one over something small — the second volunteer is standing there. No waiting. No guilt. The choice goes back to the user.
Keep three numbers in mind and the whole 12-year arc clicks.
| When | Event | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| April 2012 | Idea pitched at a Copenhagen event | Imagining a person-to-person bridge |
| January 15, 2015 | App launches, 10,000 users in 24 hours | The bridge actually works |
| May 2024 | GPT-4o integrated — works without a volunteer | The second volunteer arrives |
Nine years isn't a long distance. Same app, same users, same worry at the same cupboard. Yet "the moments without" disappeared. A blind user today waits zero seconds, even when the neighbor's light is off.
A natural follow-up. "Can any AI become a second volunteer?" No. There's a condition. One question splits it.
"Does this AI lend one of the senses?"
GPT-4o matters for a blind user because it lends sight. Eyes when eyes are gone, captions when ears are gone, plain words when the text is too dense. Only the AI that lends a sense can stand in this seat. An AI that writes clever essays can't — that's a different job.
In fact, apps in this category are quietly multiplying. Real-time captioning apps for deaf users. Read-aloud apps for children with dyslexia. "Where are you now" apps for early-stage dementia. The pattern is the same. What family, neighbors, or volunteers used to do — the AI steps in when they're not there. Supplement, not substitute.
Picture this. A blind man walks to his kitchen at 2am to find his medication. His wife is asleep. His children are in the next city. The neighbor's lights are off. Three pill bottles sit on the counter, shaped nearly identically, and the labels are not in Braille.
Old days, he would have woken his wife. Or waited until sunrise. Today, he pulls out his phone and opens the app. "Which of these three is the blood-pressure pill?" The camera points. Within three seconds, the answer comes. "The one in the middle, with the green cap, is your blood-pressure medication. Expires November 2026." It even double-checks for him.
In those three seconds, no one was woken. His wife's sleep, his children's distance, the neighbor's dark window — all undisturbed. That's the scene from a world with a second volunteer. Technology that doesn't damage the relationships between people, and only stands in the empty seats.
If this sparked something, try any of these — you don't need to be blind to start.
Technology wasn't making lonely people lonelier. At least not in this app's 12 years — those years did the opposite. 2012 connected person to person. 2024 stood beside a person when alone. The second didn't erase the first. It was added.
This principle isn't about Be My Eyes alone. In the next five to ten years, dozens of apps with the same shape will appear. Hearing, mobility, memory, language. Wherever humans used to lend each other a sense, a second volunteer will stand. Without pushing the first one out. Tattoo one question on your thinking: "Which sense does this AI lend?" The clearer the answer, the longer that AI lasts.
Three words to carry today — Link. Stand. Fill. First, technology linked person to person. Then it stood beside the empty seat. Then it filled the quiet of being alone. The technology changes. The order of these three words doesn't.