AI-Generated Images of Social Workers in Healthcare and Implications for Professional Identity

Abstract

This study critically explored the representation of social workers in healthcare through artificial intelligence (AI) generated imagery, revealing how visual technologies perpetuate both epistemic and temporal erasure. Using a critical discourse analysis framework, the research examined images produced by generative AI tools: Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Express Text to Image Generator. The findings demonstrate a consistent misrepresentation of social work, with images dominated by biomedical symbols, normative aesthetics, and hierarchical structures, while relational and culturally responsive aspects of social work practice are rendered invisible. This is compounded by the epistemic authority embedded in AI systems, which privilege dominant cultural narratives and exclude the nuanced knowledge central to social work. The discussion highlights how these representations benefit institutional power structures and technology companies by maintaining a narrow, medicalised view of care. Ultimately, the authors argue that AI-generated imagery not only misrepresents social work but actively redefines it, raising urgent questions about professional identity, visual ethics, and the legitimacy of knowledge in digitally mediated healthcare environments. It is recommended that the social work profession and those in healthcare need to lead and take ownership of the professional response to ensure that generative AI tools represent the values and ethics of the profession. IMPLICATIONS Current generative AI images do not reflect social work identity within hospital and health settings, and broader practice contexts. National social work advocacy is needed to promote image generation for a more diverse, accurate breadth of social work identity.