{"id":859545,"date":"2026-09-24T23:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859545\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T23:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:56:10","slug":"stanford-apologizes-saying-ai-altered-photo-that-changed-students-gender-and-race-violated-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/859545\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanford apologizes, saying AI-altered photo that changed student\u2019s gender and race violated policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 \u201ca serious error in judgment.\u201d <\/p>\n

The controversy centers on an image of three students posing in front of Star Ginger in the university\u2019s dining hall, according to The Stanford Review<\/a>, the student-run newspaper, which first reported the story. <\/p>\n

The original photo shows a 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 two other people in the altered image were made to look noticeably slimmer. <\/p>\n

The Review reported that Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises used the altered image in its advertisements. Its editor in chief, Garret Molloy, said the altered photos were placed on welcome banners around campus.<\/p>\n

Billy Ramirez, who is Hispanic, was the student who was removed from the image, according to The New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see me erased like that so easily was kind of very upsetting,\u201d he told the newspaper. <\/p>\n

Ramirez told the Review that he initially \u201cfound it hilarious\u201d that the school had used AI to change the photo. \u201cBut after looking at the comparison, I was also upset because I don\u2019t agree with Stanford making those choices about how we were represented,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing 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,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n

Ramirez did not immediately respond to an email Thursday seeking comment. <\/p>\n

Molloy said he believes the school was \u201ctrying to create this kind of artificial perception of diversity.\u201d He noticed Wednesday that the banners had been taken down. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, we did that with college photographers going around campus and trying to find a diverse friend group,\u201d he said in a phone interview Thursday. \u201cThose college photographers are now being replaced with AI.\u201d <\/p>\n

The university said in a statement that the altered image violated its policy on using AI for marketing and communications<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot 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,\u201d a school spokesperson said. \u201cQuite simply, this was wrong and should never have happened.\u201d <\/p>\n

The university said it has launched an investigation to determine what happened and \u201cto put in place protocols to prevent it from happening again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stanford University said the use of artificial intelligence to alter the race and appearance of students in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-859545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}