Panel Presentation:
• In the Age of A.I., Do We Still Need Artists?
Panelists: Jamie Parkerson and Chaden Noureddine
(60 min)

Abstract:

“In the Age of A.I., Do We Still Need Artists?” Creative expression is a biocultural phenomenon that is uniquely human. That uniqueness flourishes not only across media, but across time, place, and the artistic voices of individuals. Art has been part of, and evolving alongside, humanity for longer than written history can recall. Some changes have been gradual, while others have been radical, such as technological advancements or social upheavals. These radical advancements call into question what qualifies as Art. Is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) just another art movement, or is it something greater?

A.I. is poised to change the way we manage information and solve problems. It is rare that A.I. isn’t mentioned when talking about innovations within just about any field. Some of the earliest and most widely publicized uses of A.I. technology have been in media, advertising, journalism, and art. Platforms have been gathering data from the works of artists posted on social media and image hosting sites, and the resultant models are able to quickly create images, animations, and videos in any style that is desired by the user. This ability to mimic and reproduce artists’ styles has already reached a level of refinement that individual artists can be emulated, as illustrated by the viral use of A.I. tools like ChatGPT’s popular image generation of “Studio Ghibli,” conjuring images in the style of renowned Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki without his knowledge or consent.

While generative AI tools such as Midjourney, DALL·E, and Adobe Firefly can delight users, many professional artists have been trying to determine where they fit into this new world of mass-produced images. Artists were early adopters of the internet to advertise, reach new audiences, and sell their works. In the era of A.I., when the terms of use for sites such as Instagram void the individual’s copyright to the work and images are unabashedly harvested to train A.I., artists are faced with difficult choices: leaving these sites and losing an audience, attempting to circumvent A.I. through filters or other means, and accepting that their works will be used to train models while hoping that they are not training their replacements.

In the era of A.I., what does this mean for artists, and for human culture if it is no longer people dreaming up the art that we see? Is A.I. just a new media, or does it represent a threat to one of the most precious parts of humanity?

In this panel, Dr. Parkerson and Dr. Noureddine, both fourth-year psychiatry residents at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and visual artists, will have a dialogue with the audience about the use of A.I. in visual art. Dr. Parkerson will provide art (psycho)historical context through comparison to other major technological advancements and art movements, followed by Dr. Noureddine presenting some of the ways that A.I. has been used in the rapidly changing creative landscape. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of how artists are embracing or resisting A.I., as told through the personal experiences and viewpoints of the presenters, as well as interviews with contemporary artists working in the fields of fine art, film, illustration, and animation.

Keywords: art history, artificial intelligence, authorship, copyright, creative labor, generative AI, psychohistory, visual art

Short Bios:

Jamie Parkerson, M.D., is a fourth-year psychiatry resident at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where she will be continuing her training as a fellow in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. She is a graduate of Eastern Virginia Medical School, and prior to medical school she studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and Virginia Commonwealth University, where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture. While in college she was a recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship, the highest honor for artistic achievement granted by the state of Virginia. She is interested in the overlap of the imagination and artistic expression in psychiatry, as well as connecting medicine to the lives of non-professionals. In addition to peer-reviewed research, she has presented on mental health at New York Comic Con and completed a medical journalism internship at ABC News, where she continues to collaborate as an editor for the Medical Unit. She can be reached at .

Chaden Noureddine, M.D., is a fourth-year psychiatry resident at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who is currently applying into Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is completing her second year as an APA Leadership Fellow and serves as the current Members in Training Representative of the American Association of Psychiatric Administrators and Leadership. She completed her undergraduate and medical school education at Rutgers University. She has published chapters in Nature Therapy, Technological Addictions, and the use of technology in clinical psychiatric practice. She has published research on behavioral addictions and popular culture in psychiatry. She is interested in behavioral addictions, and the impact of technology and youth mental health. She can be reached at .