The Company Policy about AI and Appraising

As several articles have been published recently in high-profile publications raising questions about the use of AI in appraising, we wanted to take the opportunity to share our company philosophy about this issue.

Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917), “The Thinker (Le Penseur),” bronze, modeled 1880, cast 1901, in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Accession Number 1942.5.12, Public Domain Image

We choose to not use AI in our appraisal work for a number of reasons.  We take our professional responsibilities very seriously.  Our clients can rest assured that each appraisal report has been researched and written by us personally, drawing on our years of specialized training and connoisseurship. 

There are many deeply problematic qualities about AI which are especially troubling in the context of its misapplication to appraising.  To highlight just a few of the many issues:

-AI has been known to “hallucinate” and invent things that don’t exist or are incorrect.

-AI has been shown to plagiarize from scholars and other sources without proper attribution and draw from copyrighted material whose use is still being litigated in court.

-The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) has a rule called the Record Keeping Rule which requires appraisers to create and maintain a client workfile for each appraisal for a minimum of 5 years. Among the workfile’s contents must be included “all other data, information, and documentation necessary to support the appraiser’s opinions and conclusions and to show compliance with USPAP, or references to the location(s) of such other data, information, and documentation.” (USPAP 2024 Edition, page 12).  That isn’t possible when using AI.

-Use of AI in the creation of appraisal reports for clients has the potential to expose confidential information about their collections, adding it to the larger data set that AI draws on, and risking that confidential specific details of client artworks could potentially become public in the future if used in subsequent AI generated results.  This would be a violation of our fiduciary duty of confidentiality to our clients.

An appraisal report is a document with potential legal and tax implications.  Appraisers have to be prepared to defend their appraisal report in court if needed.  Many other professions are facing similar peril. For example, there are already numerous hair-raising articles detailing many instances where a lawyer’s use of AI has gone terribly wrong.  This has led to grave professional consequences, such as generating footnotes citing imaginary case law that were thrown out in court and penalties issued to the lawyers who used AI.

Most of all, the data sets we work with as appraisers are inherently complex and often flawed, and they require our critical analysis and many years of specialized connoisseurship training about art and the emotional and psychological drivers in the art market to interpret correctly.  Human discernment is needed to appraise art and antiques. 

Furthermore, many crucial details in our appraisal research do not exist in any data set that AI could draw on.  They exist in human relationships, conversations with gallerists and specialists, and details shared verbally about private sales that never entered any record AI could pull from.  This extensive research is part of the expert professional service our clients receive when they work with us to prepare their appraisal reports.

In full disclosure, one exception is we do use Google reverse image searches in our research, which is a tool that pre-existed AI, although it has recently had AI integrated into it.  In some instances Google reverse image searches can be a helpful tool if critical analysis is later applied to review results, such as trying to identify the artist of an illegibly signed print.  As the print is a multiple existing in numerous examples, a Google reverse image search could help find another example of the print that may have the artist’s name included in the description.  This is the only way we use this technology.

Anyone who has received an email from us can be confident that one (or often both) of us wrote it.  We consider it a form of respect to our clients that we take the time to communicate personally with them, and we would not ask our clients to take their valuable time to read something we haven’t ourselves haven’t taken the time to compose.  This is part of the customer service we provide.

We also are cognizant of the intense energy use AI requires and for environmental reasons we also do not want to waste precious resources.

We have also recently seen claims printed in major news outlets suggesting that any appraiser who also works in multiple capacities in the art world such as simultaneously being a gallerist or art advisor is not neutral and this reflects negatively on their appraisals.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with working in multiple roles in the art world and this can provide a helpful perspective about the art market.  The important detail is that an appraiser is only appraising the items being appraised, and not mixing their roles in any other capacity with those same items.  This is well understood in the appraisal field and is a central directive of the guidance provided by USPAP, IRS, and the major professional societies for appraisers.

An additional misleading claim is that it’s unique and exceptional for an appraiser to only appraise without other professional roles, and thus the rest of the community of appraisers are not neutral.  As it so happens, we primarily appraise.  It’s quite common that appraisers just appraise.  We welcome inquiries from journalists who plan to write about this topic, and encourage them to reach out to us and many of our fellow appraisal colleagues so that future articles can reflect accurate information.