Stanford University said the use of artificial intelligence to alter the race and appearance of students in a promotional photo violated its policy and was “a serious error in judgment.”
The controversy centers on an image taken of three students posing in front of Star Ginger in the university’s dining hall, according to The Stanford Review, the student-run newspaper that first reported the story.
The original photo shows one female student and two male students holding their plates as they pose for the camera. The altered image shows one of the male students replaced with an AI-generated Black female student. The other two people in the altered image were made to look noticeably slimmer.
The Stanford Review reported that the altered image was used by Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises in its advertisements. Its editor-in-chief Garret Molloy, said the altered photos were placed on welcome banners around campus.
Billy Ramirez, who is Hispanic, was the student who was removed from the image, according to The New York Times.
“To see me erased like that so easily was kind of very upsetting,” he told the outlet.
Ramirez told The Stanford Review that he initially “found it hilarious” that the school had used AI to change the photo. “But after looking at the comparison, I was also upset because I don’t agree with Stanford making those choices about how we were represented,” he said.
“Seeing my identity changed and being left out of the picture made me feel, in a way, silenced and erased from a representation that was supposed to include me,” he continued.
Ramirez did not immediately respond to an email Thursday seeking comment.
Molloy said he believes the school was “trying to create this kind of artificial perception of diversity.” He noticed on Wednesday that the banners had been taken down.
“In the past, we did that with college photographers going around campus and trying to find a diverse friend group,” he told NBC News in a phone interview on Thursday. “Those college photographers are now being replaced with AI.”
The university said in a statement that the altered image violated its policy on using AI for marketing and communications.
“Not only the fact that the image was altered, but the ways in which it was altered, reflect a serious error in judgment. We have apologized to the students in the photo whose images were altered or erased,” a school spokesperson said. “Quite simply, this was wrong and should never have happened.”
The university said it has launched an investigation to determine what happened and “to put in place protocols to prevent it from happening again.”
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