Chatham student engagement posts an AI-generated image to their Instagram. It has since been removed.

Notice: It is important to note that the Instagram post mentioned in the article has since been removed.

Scrolling on Student Engagement’s Instagram page, I watched in shock as I came across a video taking place in (or what was supposed to be) the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium. The bodies of supposed students morphed awkwardly in front of empty indoor tanks of water. 

What should’ve been a delightful recording of Chatham University’s annual spring formal ended in absolute confusion. And, no, I’m not referring to the part when somebody gets absorbed into a fish tank filled with no fish.

I’m talking about the moment I realized the video that had been posted to promote ticket sales for the spring formal was AI-generated. With a number of potential creative paths, including creative student work, generative AI is among some of the last that should be utilized — especially by a University that holds accolades for sustainability on local, national and international levels – an area where generative AI is known to be flawed.

Unfortunately, seeing the glossy, surreal and heartless muck of an AI video on my Instagram feed is no longer a new phenomenon. We’ve all been there. And I’m sure most of us remember the AI-generated video President Donald Trump recently posted depicting besieged Palestine as a U.S. tourist resort — complete with his image in a gold statue.

So, needless to say, AI is on every corner of the internet now – down to the White House. So why does this five-second video posted through a Chatham office’s social media account matter?

Well, first of all, it’s just frustrating. Using AI to promote the spring formal, arguably the most photographed night of the year (second only to the occasional animal-in-the-mailroom incident), is bizarre. Resorting to generative AI rather than utilizing captured images to create creative posters or photo carousels replaces real student work and directly contradicts Chatham’s supposed values.

For a university that wears sustainability like a badge of honor, this choice is painfully ironic. AI tools consume massive amounts of energy, contributing to environmental strain. According to an article by The Washington Post, using OpenAI’s ChatGPT GPT-4 language model to construct a 100-word email takes a little more than a 16.9-ounce water bottle, or 519 milliliters to be exact. Similarly, a study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University and Hugging Face, a company that works with AI and machine learning, concluded that image generation was the most energy-demanding use of the AI tools that were tested. The study did not specify about videos created using AI, but the consumption of both water and energy used to create moving visuals could possibly be an even greater detriment than the previously mentioned email prompt or text-to-image demand.

Meanwhile, Chatham has a student body full of talented artists, photographers, graphic design and film students who could have created something meaningful, not manufactured.

And it’s not like there was a lack of student engagement at the previous spring formal. I lost count of how many times a camera flash hit my face that night, yet somehow, Student Engagement relied on AI before showcasing real moments.  What was I meant to be engaging in for this post? The glossy, seven-fingered uncanny-valley shadows of real students or the fishless fish tank? Images of real classmates and real emotions would, and do, garner greater personal interactions with the student population.

This isn’t just about one bad Instagram post. It’s a symptom of a larger issue—corners being cut in ways that undermine the Chatham community. 

The post has since been deleted, but not before serving as a lesson for Student Engagement and other groups who have future plans of social media promotion. A few students in the comments made their feelings clear:

“the bad ai art is so embarrassing like supprt chatham art students they are so talented,” said user will.grasso.

I couldn’t have generated it better myself.