57 points docdeek 1 hour ago 42 comments
wand3r 54 minutes ago | parent
I am not a big fan of gen ai, but freak outs about nothingness detract from the real issues. I would be more concerned if they swapped the 3 students into a background or setting they were never in, than use the public setting and swap out the students for ai models.
Edit: please stop saying I didn't read the article. The article is almost exclusively opinion based on the observers reaction. "Slimmed down" is what I an saying is anonymized. As I also said, they put letting on top, so it is a tiny tile in a much larger piece. No problem if people don't agree, but the contention the article gives a lot of info and supporting claims is not true. We only really learn Stanford took the photo from the article, the rest of the conclusions are drawn from the 2 pics
wavemode 51 minutes ago | parent
wand3r 30 minutes ago | parent
LoganDark 26 minutes ago | parent
adithyassekhar 47 minutes ago | parent
sakex 37 minutes ago | parent
DaSHacka 13 minutes ago | parent
This particular instance is somewhat notable in just how egregious it is, but they pick-and-choose students based solely on ethnicity for photoshoots all the time.
LoganDark 24 minutes ago | parent
zbrozek 17 minutes ago | parent
LoganDark 42 minutes ago | parent
To downvoters: I AM NOT saying there should be less diversity. I am saying that fake and dishonest diversity is just as harmful as any other kind of discrimination. Instead of helping the problem it just creates an alternate version.
bewareofscams 41 minutes ago | parent
This is totally self-inflicted.
LoganDark 40 minutes ago | parent
468854259853 40 minutes ago | parent
andsoitis 38 minutes ago | parent
So the incentives are there to present the image you want to project to attract customers.
10xDev 31 minutes ago | parent
andsoitis 29 minutes ago | parent
To wit: even the original photo was probably staged…
repeekad 12 minutes ago | parent
If you were being sarcastic, it was not clear.
ecshafer 6 minutes ago | parent
ReptileMan 24 minutes ago | parent
rayiner 21 minutes ago | parent
cucumber3732842 30 minutes ago | parent
So, you fill your university marketing and publication department with people who think this is ok and this is the sort of PR faux-pas whoopsie you get.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that this sort of marketing material needs as many races represented as possible so as many people as possible can see it and see someone that looks like them and identify with it but something tells me the university isn't gonna come out and own it like that and even then using AI to make a replacement when you have a student body to pull from is kind of icky.
DaSHacka 16 minutes ago | parent
If anything, it adds more fuel to the maga "woke academia" fire.
EDIT: GP has since been edited to elaborate more since this reply was written
cucumber3732842 5 minutes ago | parent
If they could have pried any one of the dozen line cooks that Standford RD&E surely employs away from the hookers and blow or got the drunkest frat boys to put down the bottle for a few seconds to ask them they would have been told that AI replacing people with different races and slimming people up is slimy enough that you should give a black girl a free hoodie if that's what it takes to stage your stupid photo.
rayiner 8 minutes ago | parent
It's regressive to want someone to look like you in order to identify with them. And universities like Stanford should be fighting that regressive instinct, not indulging it.
The consequences of not doing so will get ugly. My kids go to a "diverse" school, and the message the kids get is that white people must reject special affinity for their co-ethnics, while that's acceptable or even encouraged for non-white people. I think this double standard has only a decade or two before it collapses completely.
8f2ab37a-ed6c 24 minutes ago | parent
randusername 18 minutes ago | parent
busssard 12 minutes ago | parent
I have done similar things and it sometimes changes the apperance of the people in the image. They might have also wanted to change the pullover of the guy wearing GAP.
And honestly targetgroup research should have happened before the photograph was taken. Not in post... but hey that was the big promise of genrative models right? The thing is, the marketing department could have posed in their office holding staplers and notepads and then asked the model to recreate the image as well. to even save the cost for the photographer...
tengbretson 11 minutes ago | parent
peri-cl 11 minutes ago | parent
mc32 9 minutes ago | parent
Sure, it’s stupid to be so lazy that you can’t use a new photo with whatever characteristics you want. It’s also stupid to slim down a chubby student without permission. I think she has more reason to be upset than he has. That said why does the university see the need to alter reality?
ecshafer 8 minutes ago | parent
rayiner 2 minutes ago | parent
comrade1234 7 minutes ago | parent