California university sparks student fury after posting AI image

Stanford University has been embroiled in another AI image controversy after it was forced to remove an image of an all-white, all-male marching band from its website following an outcry from students.

The AI-generated picture, published on the prestigious US university’s Campus Center construction website, showed a band dressed in red blazers, white shirts and fedoras performing on the campus’ White Plaza.

Members of the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band told The Stanford Daily they were shocked to find the AI-generated image on the university’s website.

Drum major Jose Serrano called the decision “pretty stupid.”

“If you’re going to use AI, make an AI thing for your building, but don’t put people on it,” he said.

Band conductor and executive officer Sadie Taylor said the depiction was particularly frustrating, given the organization’s efforts to attract a diverse membership.

“We work pretty hard to champion diversity within the organization and try and encourage women and students of color to join,” she said. “So to see the University sort of undo all of that, it’s pretty frustrating.”

Taylor and fellow band leaders formally complained to the Campus Center team on Monday, pointing out that authentic photographs of the band were already available.

“We welcome you to use one of those, instead of falsifying an all-white, all-male, AI slop version of the Band,” they wrote.

The university replaced the image with another architectural rendering shortly afterward.

Taylor said the university had not informed the band before publishing the image, while Serrano questioned the use of AI to generate figures resembling real students without their knowledge.

“Our likenesses are being put into this AI algorithm and spit out and spat out, which is just ridiculous. It’s insane,” he said.

Stanford defended the image as an architectural visualization intended to illustrate Commons Great Room, part of the wider Campus Center redevelopment.

Assistant Vice President of Communications Angie Davis said the figures were illustrative and were not intended to represent members of the marching band.

“AI-assisted imagery is standard industry practice for architectural visualization,” Davis wrote in an email to The Stanford Daily.

However, band members said the figures’ clothing closely resembled their distinctive uniforms, with some claiming the generated figures looked like actual members.

Stanford’s AI guidelines prohibit generating “content that depicts, impersonates, or closely resembles a real person.” The university has not said the marching band image breached those guidelines.

The latest controversy follows a separate incident in September, when Stanford admitted it had breached its own AI policies by digitally altering a photograph used in promotional material.

Hispanic student Billy Ramirez was removed from a photograph taken at a Lunar New Year celebration in 2024 and replaced with an AI-generated black woman. Two other students in the image were digitally altered to appear thinner.

The changes, first reported by student publication The Stanford Review, prompted the university to remove the promotional banners.

“Both the alteration and lack of disclosure in this case violate that policy,” Stanford said in a statement, adding that it would provide additional training and strengthen reviews of promotional material.

Ramirez described the experience as upsetting.

“To see me erased like that so easily was kind of very upsetting,” he said.

Stanford’s policy prohibits using AI to produce or alter images of university people, events, research, facilities or achievements.

While the university acknowledged a policy breach in Ramirez’s case, it defended the marching band image as an illustrative rendering rather than a depiction of identifiable people.

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