Daniel Roper
Normality Beyond What Possible | Mixed Media on Canvas 2024
My journey as an artist began when I moved to Columbus for medical school. I needed something to hang on my walls, but I did not have the budget to purchase any art. So I went to the local art store and bought some cheap supplies to get started. My first paintings were recreations of album covers I enjoyed. While I painted, I would exclusively listen to that album in hopes of capturing the essence of their work. Gradually, I was inspired to incorporate small variations in the album artwork that made them more personal. Eventually, the music I was listening to inspired me to create my own artwork- although I still love referencing various art forms in my own creative expression.
This piece, titled “Normality Beyond What Possible”, contains numerous references, all incorporated to convey the message that representation matters. New technology has emerged recently that allows artificial intelligence to create images from word prompts. One of the problems with computer-generated images is that they frequently inaccurately depict hands. This is because hands usually hold the subject of a piece of art or picture but are not typically celebrated or featured. Machine learning is a vital aspect of new and emerging technology, but it will serve to magnify our biases as a society if we are not considerate about representation. There is a very near future in medicine in which artificial intelligence will be utilized more and more. We may soon rely on machine learning to recognize a rash on different skin tones, help diagnose a genetic disorder based on facial features, or even optimize transplant lists in an equitable way.
A popular trend online recently has been to prompt AI image generators to create an image and then insist that they make the image “more” of an adjective. In this case, an initial prompt of a “normal” image was a suburban neighborhood. As the AI program was instructed to make the image “even more normal” multiple times, it began to depict different variations of whiteness. Here is the link to the thread that my painting references: https://x.com/esyudkowsky/status/1734773665340731825?s=46
The image generator considers whiteness as “normal” because it has learned that from us. Whiteness is our standard of beauty. Whiteness is our default. Whiteness is even our currency.
It is my hope that those who view this piece of art are inspired to embrace diversity and representation.
Daniel is a OSUCOM Alumnus and a current hospitalist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
