Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises used AI to race- and gender-swap students who had been photographed for its advertisements — and even alter their appearances by slimming down their faces.
Student-run newspaper The Stanford Review obtained before and after photos, one showing an original, untouched image of students holding up plates of food in the cafeteria. A student featured in the unaltered photo said he was surprised to see he had been replaced with a black woman in the finished version.
“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,” Billy Ramirez, a junior, told the outlet.
“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,” 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.”
Two other students featured in the photo with Ramirez also had their image manipulated by AI, their faces visibly slimmed-down in the final photo.
SR&DE oversees housing and resident dining hall operations for the elite Bay Area university’s more than 18,000 students.