Nationwide — Stanford University is facing criticism after an advertisement for its dining services allegedly used artificial intelligence to change the race and gender of a student without his approval. The AI-edited image replaced a white male student with a Black woman and also changed the appearance of two other students who were originally pictured.
The Stanford Review, a student-run newspaper, obtained both the original photograph and the version later used in the advertisement. The original showed several students inside a Stanford dining hall while holding plates of food. In the edited version, one of the students had been replaced entirely, while two others remained but appeared to have slimmer faces. The changes made the final advertisement look different from the photograph that was originally taken.
Billy Ramirez, a Stanford junior featured in the original photo, said he first learned about the edits when a friend sent him side-by-side images. Ramirez told The Stanford Review that he was driving to school from his hometown when he received the photos. He said he was initially baffled by how much AI had changed the people in the picture, including his race and gender.
The discovery became more serious for Ramirez after he realized that the finished advertisement no longer showed him as he actually appeared. The AI had removed him and inserted a Black woman in his place. Ramirez said he did not agree with Stanford changing the way he was represented in an advertisement that originally included him.
“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,” Ramirez said. He added, “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.”
The edits also affected the other students in the photograph. Their identities were not replaced, but their faces were visibly altered in the final version. Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises, or SR&DE, oversees housing and dining operations for the university’s more than 18,000 students. The case has drawn attention because the advertisement used AI to alter the appearance, race, and gender of people who had originally been photographed for the promotion.