Look out from that attractive balcony and observe the delightful spires and collegiate architecture of Princeton! This is the image conjured on the website of the new apartment community, ‘195 Nassau‘ (map) which is now advertising units available this spring. The development is described as “a modern landmark, positioned on Nassau Street in the midst of Princeton University’s storied campus”. And that is certainly true, a resident could hardly be closer to Princeton University campus. But look more closely at those website images. Is that view for real? Do those buildings actually exist in Princeton? The answer is, no, the view is not real, and the buildings do not exist. Instead, the image appears to have been generated using artificial intelligence tools, offering a false view of the town.
The 195 Nassau apartment community is certainly an attractive option for people seeking walkable living in downtown Princeton. The website lists dozens of stores and restaurants that are all within easy reach of the new rentals. But the image gallery also includes a bunch of pictures that are not real. One appears to show Blair Hall of Princeton University right in the backyard of the new apartment development. But that is not possible – Blair Hall is about half a mile away, on the other side of the university campus. And it isn’t actually a picture of Blair Hall, it’s just a building that kinda looks like Blair Hall. Even the picture of the parking garage looks weirdly fake.
A little bit of detective work reveals that many of the image links contain the words “ChatGPT-Image”, suggesting that whoever built the website used ChatGPT to cook up some pictures that put the new apartment community in some artificially-enhanced surroundings. Many of the buildings seen in the pictures aren’t from Princeton. They are an algorithmic approximation of college buildings, scraped from the web. Deep in the small print of the website, a “photo statement” says “Photos on this website are intended to be representations and may not be actual photos.” That statement is correct. Many of these ‘photos’ are definitely not real photos.
Although the floorplans and ‘virtual tours‘ of the new apartment building look great, it’s impossible to know what’s real. Anybody renting in Princeton ought to be careful and make sure they tour a building in person. Because based on website marketing, you may not be looking at real Princeton. It might just be some AI slop.
Walkable Princeton reached out to the building management for comment but did not receive any response at the time of writing.
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