Artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to touch many aspects of human life and Evan Zeitler, MD, isn’t sitting on the side lines of this technological advancement.
Dr. Zeitler is using artificial intelligence generated images to bring attention to his nephrology journal club.
“You just sort of turn off your logical brain for a little bit and just say, ‘what can I hint at and get the AI to make some connections,'” Dr. Zeitler said. “The image might consist of a hint about what’s going on in the case conference or may be a summary of the journal article that we’ll be discussing.”
From a brain in a fish bowl, representing a case conference about sodium and brain swelling, to a kidney running on a treadmill, illustrating cardiac screening of kidneys, these teasers can be pretty unusual.
“It’s meant to be a hook and I think that’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about are some of the like responses that I get when I send out the emails, usually the morning of,” Dr. Zeitler said.
Using the image generator is mostly straightforward. First, log into a program like DALLE-2 and use broad terms that characterize what you want the image to look like. You can also specify the style and quality. After around 30 seconds four images will populate which you can edit, select and download.
“I am somebody who has always had very limited artistic ability, even my parents will tell you that from when I was little, but I have a relatively big imagination. So, this to me has been such an incredible tool. You know, you type what you’re thinking,” Dr. Zeitler said.
He has been a digital artist for 6-months and has recently been asked to create kidney themed AI generated art for the nephrology journal club on twitter, @NEPHJC.