Stanford University, an institution that receives hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding, was caught red-handed using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to digitally erase a student and replace him with an AI-generated Black woman in university promotional materials.
The conservative campus paper The Stanford Review reported Monday that Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises took a photograph shot by a university photographer, ran it through AI, and published the doctored result as advertising.
Sophomore Billy Ramirez recognized the original shot. In the banner that went out, he was gone. In his place: an AI-generated Black woman. Two students to his right were also digitally slimmed down and had their faces altered.
“I was driving to school from my hometown when my friend sent me the images comparing the banner to the original photos, and I was immediately baffled,” Ramirez told The Stanford Review.
“At first, I found it hilarious that they had used AI to completely change our appearances, including my race and gender. 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. 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.”
Hellbound and Down 