Stanford Apologizes After AI Altered Students’ Race and Body Size in Campus Ad

Stanford University has apologized after a promotional photo used on campus welcome banners was digitally altered with artificial intelligence, replacing a Hispanic male student with a Black female student and slimming the appearance of two other students pictured.

The image, produced by Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises, was first reported by the Stanford Review, a student publication. According to the outlet, the AI editing swapped out a Hispanic male student for a Black female student and altered the faces of a white male student and an Asian female student to make them appear noticeably thinner.

A Stanford spokesperson told NBC News the university has apologized directly to the students whose images were changed or removed from the photo.

“Not only the fact that the image was altered, but the ways in which it was altered, reflect a serious error in judgment,” the spokesperson said. “We have apologized to the students in the photo whose images were altered or erased.”

“Quite simply, this was wrong and should never have happened,” the spokesperson added.

The university said it has launched an investigation into how the alteration happened and plans to put protocols in place “to prevent it from happening again.”

Garret Molloy, editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review, told NBC News he believes the university was “trying to create this kind of artificial perception of diversity.”

“In the past, we did that with college photographers going around campus and trying to find a diverse friend group,” Molloy said. “Those college photographers are now being replaced with AI.”

Molloy said the altered image, which had appeared on welcome banners around campus, has since been taken down.

Billy Ramirez, the Hispanic male student who was digitally removed from the photo, described the experience to the Stanford Review.

“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,” Ramirez said.

The episode has drawn wide attention online, with critics pointing to the incident as an example of the risks universities face when using AI tools to edit promotional imagery in the name of representing diversity.