Radiology Synthetic Confusion: How Generative Artificial Intelligence Amplifies Misunderstandings of Radiologists and Technologists in Patient-Facing Media
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Rationale and Objectives: Artificial intelligence (AI) tools, particularly generative models, are increasingly used to depict clinical roles in healthcare. This study evaluates whether generative AI systems accurately differentiate between radiologists and medical radiation technologists (MRTs), 2 roles often confused by patients and providers. Materials and Methods: We assessed 1380 images and videos generated by 8 text-to-image/video AI models. Five raters evaluated task-role accuracy, attire, equipment, lighting, isolation, and demographics. Statistical tests compared differences across models and roles. Results: MRTs were depicted accurately in 82.0% of outputs, while only 56.2% of radiologist images/videos were role-appropriate. Among inaccurate radiologist depictions, 79.1% misrepresented MRTs tasks. Radiologists were more often male (73.8%) and White (79.7%), while MRTs were more diverse. Stethoscope misuse, lack of disability/religious markers, and overuse of business attire for radiologists further reflected bias. Conclusion: Generative AI frequently misrepresents radiologist roles and demographics, reinforcing stereotypes and public confusion. Greater oversight and inclusion standards are needed to ensure equitable AI-generated healthcare content.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.029 | 0.191 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".