Stanford University has removed promotional banners from its California campus after confirming that artificial intelligence was used to substantially alter a photograph of students, including replacing one student with a fictitious person.
The image, produced for Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises, showed student Billy Ramirez replaced by an AI-generated Black woman. University officials acknowledged that the alterations and the failure to disclose the use of AI violated Stanford policy.
The controversy emerged after The Stanford Review published the original and altered photographs on September 21. The original image, taken in 2024, showed three students together at a campus dining facility, while the promotional version removed Ramirez and inserted the generated woman in his place. The appearances of the two students who remained in the photograph were also digitally changed, including alterations that made their faces appear slimmer
Ramirez said he initially found the manipulation amusing after a friend sent him the images, but his reaction changed after examining what had been done. He said he disagreed with Stanford changing the way the students were represented and described being removed from the photograph as making him feel “silenced and erased.” The altered picture was subsequently displayed on “Welcome Home” banners around the university campus.
Stanford later confirmed that its Residential & Dining Enterprises unit had used generative AI to modify the photograph. University public relations director Charlene Gage said Stanford had reviewed the incident and determined that the manipulation breached university rules. The banners carrying the altered photograph have since been taken down.
Stanford’s guidelines for marketing and communications require transparency when AI materially contributes to published content and say AI-generated or manipulated media should be clearly identified when failing to do so could mislead an audience. The guidelines also prohibit publishing AI-generated content that falsely depicts Stanford people, events, research, facilities or achievements. They further require appropriate authorization before creating realistic AI depictions resembling real people.
The university said both the manipulation itself and the absence of disclosure violated its standards. Stanford is now working to provide additional training for staff and strengthen the review of promotional materials before publication, according to its response to the controversy. The incident has drawn wider attention to questions about whether institutions should use generative AI to alter the identities or physical appearances of real people in advertising.
The episode is particularly notable because Stanford has long played a major role in artificial-intelligence research while simultaneously developing institutional rules governing how the technology should be used. The university’s communications guidelines emphasise accuracy, transparency and human oversight when AI is incorporated into public-facing work. The removal of the banners now leaves Stanford reviewing how those requirements were bypassed in material produced by one of its own departments.
