"It looks sexy but it's wrong." Tensions in creativity and accuracy using genAI for biomedical visualization

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the use of generative AI in biomedical visualization, highlighting its aesthetic appeal but also its limitations in accuracy and trustworthiness, based on interviews with practitioners.

Contribution

It provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of practitioners' perspectives on genAI in BioMedVis, emphasizing current practices, concerns, and the need for human oversight.

Findings

genAI is used at various workflow stages by practitioners

Practitioners' attitudes range from enthusiastic to skeptical

genAI's limitations impact trustworthiness of biomedical visuals

Abstract

We contribute an in-depth analysis of the workflows and tensions arising from generative AI (genAI) use in biomedical visualization (BioMedVis). Although genAI affords facile production of aesthetic visuals for biological and medical content, the architecture of these tools fundamentally limits the accuracy and trustworthiness of the depicted information, from imaginary (or fanciful) molecules to alien anatomy. Through 17 interviews with a diverse group of practitioners and researchers, we qualitatively analyze the concerns and values driving genAI (dis)use for the visual representation of spatially-oriented biomedical data. We find that BioMedVis experts, both in roles as developers and designers, use genAI tools at different stages of their daily workflows and hold attitudes ranging from enthusiastic adopters to skeptical avoiders of genAI. In contrasting the current use and perspectives on genAI observed in our study with predictions towards genAI in the visualization pipeline from prior work, we refocus the discussion of genAI's effects on projects in visualization in the here and now with its respective opportunities and pitfalls for future visualization research. At a time when public trust in science is in jeopardy, we are reminded to first do no harm, not just in biomedical visualization but in science communication more broadly. Our observations reaffirm the necessity of human intervention for empathetic design and assessment of accurate scientific visuals.