Question: I’m concerned that my university is actively disciplining students who use AI and then turns around and uses AI generated art work on the CMU Tech website. I just don’t quite know how to feel about this. It feels so hypocritical and downright disrespectful of all the art and design students that attend school with CMU. Gosh, do you think I am overreacting here because I have some strong feelings here about this decision.

Dear Hypocrite Hater,

You have every right to feel strongly about this situation. The use of AI images in marketing material is certainly sending a very specific message about that department and to the rest of campus. The reporters at the Criterion did some digging on it and not only were some design students upset about the decision, but so were some students at CMU-Tech. If the school is going to have an AI policy, it doesn’t make sense for it to only apply to students. They promote “Integrity” as one of the seven core values and this could undermine that. It could be more permissible if the AI program was developed by a CMU student, but it probably wasn’t. Perhaps it was just too far for someone from the marketing team to travel to snap some pictures at CMU-Tech and loading it into ChatGPT seemed like a good idea at the time. The image is still in use and I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume that there’s more AI generated material out there that hasn’t been caught yet. Don’t worry about overreacting and don’t stoop down to the marketing department’s level.